Harlan's Race

the Santa Clara Mint, who was going to donate the 30 medals for the race—gold, silver and bronze for each division.
    In the office, we sat with Vince’s contact, Burt, a young executive who was gay. Burt proudly laid out the proofs on the desk for us to look at. Vince had picked Billy’s best profile photo, and the mint’s artist had turned it into a beautiful low relief. Billy’s brave eyes and windblown curls looked just right. It was strange, seeing my lover turn into a monument before my very eyes. When Vince and I looked up at each other, our eyes were wet.
    “We’re proud of this,” Burt said. “It’s one of the nicest we’ve done.”
    Feeling apprehensive, Vince and I accompanied him into the foundry, where they had a “melt” going and were about to gold-plate the first 10 of the medals. The place shook with the roar of the gas-fired furnace. As its door slid open and I stared into its heart of light, a blast of heat rolled out over me. A claustrophobic flash of the past almost suffocated me at that moment — I expected to see Billy’s ashes in a gray heap. Now, a small crucible sat there. As a worker in insulated suit and safety glasses lifted the crucible out with tongs, the melted gold, dull red, trembled with the movement.
    For a moment, the old grief splashed me, like hot metal.
    Another worker handed me a metal-cutting tool.
    Pulling myself together, I gritted my teeth and nipped the ring in three pieces. Billy’s death had to transform into power and healing for as many people as possible.
    The biggest piece I tossed into the crucible. The others, tiny bits, I gave to Burt for the silver and bronze melts.
    TWENTY-ONE
    As the summer of 1981 moved on, we started counting down to the Memorial 5-K.
    Vince and I settled ouchily into life together. Usually the door between our duplexes stood open, making what he called the “simplex”. Now and then, it slammed shut — to be creaked open later by him or me, and an apology offered like a rose. With spooky caution, I let myself love the simple daily things that I’d had with Billy, and lost. The sounds of another man in the house. His footsteps behind me, a warm kiss on the neck, his smell in my pillow, the clink of dishes in the kitchen. Could we survive long enough to have two wheelchairs in the sun? Two old men with liver spots on their hands, still arguing about gay politics?
    July
    The New York Times and other papers jarred the country with the first headlines: RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS. Rumor spiked into arguments. Was it sexually transmitted? Should the men stop being so free with sex? The gay community would split deeper than the Grand Canyon on these issues. But the religious extremists would all agree — it was God’s judgment on sodomites.
    The news left Vince and me staring at each other. Mario had died of that rare cancer. It was called Kaposi’s sarcoma.
    Meanwhile, the month of July saw Chino still sneaking and peeking in Griffith Park. He was hoping to catch sight of LEV. doing the same.
    Now and then, Chino did a stake-out, sitting quietly behind dark glasses in somebody’s van, a different one every time, with a camera and zoom lens, binoculars, a thermos of coffee and a porta-potty in the back. Or he rambled around unrecognizable, disguised as a homeless dirtbag with his bed-roll of stuff, watching the flow of people through the park.
    A couple of times, he spent the night, and we could only imagine his adventures during those hours when the main cruising areas were rustling with homy men and gay-bashers.
    August
    Gay men and lesbians were nervously handing around another news story. The Wall Street Journal said that new research linked “gay cancer” to some cases among women and heterosexual males. Jacques called me from Hawaii, and nervously asked what I thought. I knew he was afraid he might have given something to Eileen, and maybe to the baby that died.
    “Well,” I said, “until they find out what it is, and develop a test, we’re all in the dark.”
    Marian was in a panic that Chino had given her something.
    “It was only ... er ... heavy petting, but...”
    She couldn’t discuss the matter with her straight gynecologist. He didn’t know anything about gay sex, and didn’t want to know. I told her to call Doc Jacobs. All Doc could tell her was to go for a complete blood count, to see what her T-cells were doing. Her count was a little over 700. But that in itself didn’t tell us