The Front Runner (35 page)

In the 5,000-meter heats, Billy and Armas qualified easily for the final. Bob Dellinger made the final too, but Mike Stella missed.

All around us, you could hear people talking up the

5,000 final on Sunday like no other event. Even the glamour of the 1,500 event was being eclipsed.

Some incredible bets were being made. Steve Goodnight had recklessly bet a rich conservative American track buff $10,000 that Billy would win the 10,000 meter. "Good thing I won," he told me, "because I didn't have $10,000." Now they were renewing the bet—$5,000 for the 5,000 meter.

On Saturday, when I saw Billy, he was oddly subdued and tense.

"I'm going to come out tonight," he said, "and we'll spend the night together. I really need you. I didn't sleep good last night. Another night like that and Armas will blast me off the track tomorrow. Everything is getting to be too much."

Early that evening, John cleared out of his room and I waited for Billy there. The bodyguards and Vince brought Billy to the hotel, and we all searched the room for bombs, and then the bodyguards left and camped in the corridor outside.

We locked the door, and were alone for the first time in more than a week.

Billy was curiously quiet and keyed-up. He slipped off his brown split-suede jacket and prowled around the room, stopping to look out the big window. Evening was just coming. The sky was rose-red and the city lights and smog of Montreal spread out to the horizon.

I just watched him, waiting for him to unwind. He was dressed up a little for once. He had on a soft blue silk shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, and gray knit slacks with flared cuffs that showed off his long legs and small rear end to perfection.

It struck me how much he had matured in the twenty-one months we'd known each other. Love, struggle and hard work had burned all the last traces of coltishness out of him. A certain blurred youthfulness was gone from his face, leaving it defined, burnished, expressive. He was twenty-four now, or would be on September ninth. He was very much a man, very much my peer.

As he moved around the room, I couldn't take my eyes off him, loving his quietness, his hardness, his seriousness.

"Foxes," he said. "Rubbing up my thigh all week."

I laughed a little. "Has that got you bothered?"

"It makes me remember what I really like."

We stood by the window a little, looking out at the lights. He pulled the gold medal out of his pocket and put it in my hand. "It's yours," he said. "Keep it."

I laid it on the dresser.

"I keep trying not to think about tomorrow," he said. "I have to do it again, and I don't know if I can. When I came out of the last turn in the 10,000, I was dead. I reached down and there was nothing. Good thing he was dead too."

"You've got one up on him," I said. "He's thinking about how you beat him once, and how you might do it again."               

We talked for a while about the race, and slowly his apprehension eased. We decided that he wouldn't try to run away this time. He'd set a slower pace at first, but fast enough to drain Armas steadily. Then starting at 3,000 meters he'd stage a long drive to burn off Armas' kick in the last half-mile.

Finally, wordlessly, he kissed me on the mouth. Then he moved away from the window, unbuttoning his shirt slowly. Shrugging it off, he threw it over a chair. In the soft lamplight, he was a living anatomy lesson.

"You're in a heavy mood," I said, taking off my tie.

"I've got a real load on," he said. He smiled a little, with that seductive ruttish look in his eyes. "If we don't get it off me, I'm gonna be like with five pounds of lead in my jock strap tomorrow."

He stripped off his slacks and his snug, white cotton briefs. Jerking the bedcovers all the way off the bed, he lay down on the sheet. To tease him a little, I took my time, taking off my own trousers and underpants. He lay there propped on one elbow, twitching pleasantly with impatience, running his free hand up and down his flank.

"Come on," he said. His eyes were level and hot as two blue-gray flames of pure oxygen.

"Coming," I said, trying not to smile.

He kept caressing himself, rolling his head back and forth, and his body flexed and writhed a little on the sheet.

I stood naked at the foot of the bed, lifted one of his bare feet and inspected his sole. "How are those blisters? Hm, they look pretty good. Parker takes good care of you."

He laughed with exasperation and jerked his foot away from me. Rolling over on his stomach, he rubbed and writhed himself into the sheet. Then, with a lithe, slow twist, he was over on his back again, his whole body wringing with need and life. He seethed with that effervescent peak that would last maybe two weeks more before going flat, like a living champagne. I just stood there admiring him, making him admire me, playing with myself to tease him more.

"They mixed up your birth certificate," I said. "You're a flaming Scorpio."

"Astrology is a lot of crap," he said.

I lay slowly down by him, and we embraced with an exhalation of relief, rolling slowly this way and that, our thighs tangled and gripping. We made love with slow, deliberate, obscene tenderness. There was the sureness of the thousandth time we had done these things. There was even something of the sharpness of that first time eighteen years ago, in the theater with the youth in the red jacket. Slowly we doubled and twined and kneeled and slid on the bed. We didn't speak except to whisper some request. My whole life was in every touch of his mouth or hands on my body. Just his warm hair brushing my thighs made me shake all over. At first our bodies were dry, but shortly an iridescent sweat came out on us. We kept looking at each other. His face was grave, absorbed, alight.

Finally, when we'd prolonged it till we hurt, we let ourselves get frantic. We lost control then. I remember, with a terrible clarity, the heat of his driving body on my back, and the low gasping animal cries that he gave as he came, and his weight on me for a long time after, lips against my neck, hair falling forward on both our heads.

Finally he drew a sigh. "That was worth waiting a week and running a world record for."

We took a shower together and horsed around a little, laughing. Then we pulled bathrobes on, and I phoned down to order our dinner sent up.

Billy ate hungrily, going heavy on potatoes and other carbohydrates to finish the glycogen-packing. He was now his usual relaxed self. We talked as if we were home, about the plans we had for the gay studies program, about how we'd defend our privacy, about things we'd like to do.

"Steve wants us to come out to Fire Island before the seasons ends," I said. "You've never seen it in the fall. It's beautiful."

"I'll bet," he said, his eyes sparkling. "Are there big storms in the fall too?"

He took off his robe and slipped the chain of the gold medal over his head. It looked indecently beautiful on his bare chest. He walked around a little with macho seductiveness.

"I never knew you were so perverse," I said.

He laughed. "Neither did I." He took the medal off.

We went back to bed and had another mild one. Then we lay together talking, the blanket over us. He was deeply relaxed now, his eyes soft and vague. Our conversation turned to the direction his next few years of running would take.

"I'd like to try the marathon again," he said. "I ran a 2:22 that summer with Vince, in the Golden Gate. With the speed I've got now, I ought to be able to do a 2:12 right off."

The vaguest unease crossed my mind. It was one of the rare occasions when he mentioned those years with Vince. As always, I asked myself if they'd been lovers, and then asked myself what difference it made—except that Vince was still around and could conceivably someday take him away from me. His friendship with Vince had outlasted any of his loves, including (so far) his for me.

Out loud, I agreed about the marathon. It's axiomatic in running that the outstanding 10,000 man is often

outstanding as a marathoner, because the same type of training works for both.

I teased him a little. "You just want to run marathons because it's more miles."

He laughed, warm against me. "You should have seen Vince and me. We were a couple of nuts. Vince had never ran farther than fifteen miles. The most I'd done was about twenty. But we were very sure of ourselves. We went out at a 5-minute pace and we were just having a ball. We were in second place, running together. Then along about sixteen miles, Vince's knees started hurting. I think his knee troubles date from that race. Anyway, he couldn't hold the pace and he told me to go on. So I did, and I thought, this is a snap. I was on for about a 2:16. Then the guy in the lead, Gerry Moore, eased up a little and I passed him. Gee wow, I thought, I'm gonna win this thing. And then about the 22-mile mark, I just fell apart."

We were both laughing, in each other's arms.

"That man with the hammer really knocked me on the head," said Billy. "So of course I had to ease off, and Moore passed me, and a couple other guys passed me. I came in fourth with a 2:22.35, and I felt so bad after the race that I couldn't eat. Poor Vince walked in, I think he got a 2:50. That was his last marathon. He says the marathon is too goddamn far."

"Well," I said, "you've been a good boy, so I'll let you run a marathon or two, and we'll see how you do."

"Maybe you could run them with me. You could run unofficially. I'd like that."

"I couldn't stay up with you. I could do a 2:45, maybe."

He was gazing softly, getting sleepy. "We have to start thinking about 1980. We could double in the 10,000 and the marathon that time."

"You're going to be a busy father by then," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "We have to start fox-hunting when we get back."

I gave him a massage. He kept saying it felt so good.

"Poor Vince," he said softly, his eyes closed. "He ought to find somebody. He's so alone."

Suddenly he was asleep, breathing slowly and shal-lowly like a child. It was about quarter of ten. Quietly I turned out the bedside light, and lay down by him carefully so that he didn't wake up. Sleepy and relaxed myself, I drifted straight off.

How many more times would I have embraced him that night, how many more times would I have kissed him, if I had known the name of that stranger lover who was already in Montreal, who had already bought his stadium ticket from a scalper for the 5,000 tomorrow?

That implacable lover who was going to turn Billy's eyes away from me forever.

EIGHTEEN

IT was just a few minutes before the 5,000 final began.

Those minutes, plus the thirteen-odd minutes that the race would last, and another day, and we could all go home.

The twelve runners were jogging up and down the track, keeping warm and loose until the moment the officials told them to go to the line. In the infield, the high-jump finals were going on. The marathon was out being run on its 26.2-mile course through Montreal, and would finish up here later. Right after the 5,000 the 1,500 final would be rap—the race that Vince should have been in, and wasn't.

The murmur of the stadium spilled down onto the track. Nobody was watching the high jumpers. They were all watching the two slender runners jogging around, Billy and Armas Sepponan. I knew that the eye of the TV cameras would be fixed on them. Via satellite, their image would be flashed to millions of viewers in dozens of countries. It was safe to say that the entire civilized world was looking at Billy at that moment.

He was unaware, inward, alert, as he jogged along the straight; then wheeled gently and came back. His number 928 was pinned to his breast. Dellinger passed him jogging the other way, but they didn't look at each other.

Vince was by me, wearing his sleeveless jerkin. Next to him was Mike Stella, who had bombed out in the 5,000 heats.

Vince looked at me. "Harlan, right now he's not even thinking about you." He smiled a little.

"I hope not," I said.

The crowd's murmur grew. The officials were mo-

tioning the runners to the line. They stood there in a ragged little row, loose, doing their final psychs, hands on hips, looking around a little. Then their line straightened, crisp, military, each man bent and toeing the mark.

We scarcely heard the starter's pistol as the crowd yelled them off.

I sat there keeping track of Billy's laps. This time around, I was a bit more relaxed. Possibly, as I looked back on it, it was the months of fatigue setting in. Even if he loses, I was thinking, he'll still have the gold from the 10,000. Very likely he'll get a silver or a bronze here. It won't be a great tragedy, really. He will have made his point.

With his usual cheerful willingness to be the guinea pig, Billy had put his body up front. He was clipping along at a near-world record pace. He wasn't running away this time, just teasing them on at that punishing tempo. The field went with him, Sepponan running in next-to-last place. They were nicely bunched. Billy purled them through the first 3,000 meters, averaging 62 seconds a lap.

At 3,000 Billy shook up the field by accelerating sharply. They started stringing out behind him. The next lap he gave them a 58.1. Doggedly, Bob Dellinger had moved into the No. 2 slot, and Sepponan was forced to start moving up.

"Here we go," said Vince. "The show's on."

In the next lap, Billy raised the ante to 57.3. With the runners well into the last half of the race, the crowd noise was swelling. So intense was their concentration that you didn't feel the usual "dead space" that the crowd sometimes feels in these long-distance races on the track.

The field, a little shaken by his display of confidence, was really stringing out now, and Sepponan moving up on the outside. Billy led by thirty yards. Dellinger struggled gamely to stay ahead of Armas, then let go, and Armas was in the clear.

The crowd had surged to its feet and the yell had risen to its Olympic shriek—that massed yell of human-

ity that you hear only at the Games, high-pitched, deafening as the keening of a hurricane wind.

They went into the next-to-last lap. Now it was Billy and Armas's race, with the rest trailing and shattered. Armas was kicking, rapidly closing the gap between himself and Billy. Vince had his hand clenched on my arm so tightly that it might have hurt had I been more aware.