Harlan's Race

two vets’ eyes. They were scanning, scanning—now and then pausing on the cyclist who was ambling down the slope from the tree line. He was pushing his bike along. Lean and professional looking, he was wearing goggles, light gloves, like he was training for the Tour de France. But his long loose dark hair and mustache gave him a Frank Zappa look, and he walked with counterculture artlessness. His outfit was tights and pullover that were tie-dyed, hippie-style, into greens and browns.
    “Looks like he’s heading for the latrines,” Harry said. “Denny is coming this way,” Chino added.
    Chino got up and kept his eyes on the SWAT man, whose baseball cap was working its way through the crowd.
    Harry got up too, and walked casually toward the end of the row of toilets, his eyes fixed, like a cat’s, on the hippie.
    But the cyclist stopped in the crowd, and just stood there, gawking around, as if waiting for the awards to start.
    Just then, Mason went to the mike. The disco volume went down. Chino stood in front of me and Vince, eyes scanning the crowd, pausing on Denny. The cyclist was still where he’d stopped.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” Mason said into the silence, “before we go to the awards, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a Front Runners member who is also our guest of honor today. Harlan Brown ...”
    I got up on the platform and went to the mike.
    As sun broke through the fog, that crowd of glowing faces and colorful runners’ gear lit up, bathed in blessing. Their eyes were fixed on me. Some people sat at tables, while the rest relaxed on the grass. Bare arms and legs sprawled everywhere. Sunlit heads lay on lovers’ shoulders, or in lovers’ laps. There were even a few straight lovers and married couples — arms across shoulders, pairs of hands tightly held. And the usual singles with the usual questions about love in their eyes. Probably the youngest runners had only a hazy idea who Billy Sive was. In 1976, they’d been in grade school. Some just wanted to get their medals, and go home.
    Was LEV. listening? From that maze of green somewhere? For all I knew, he might be so pissed off by now, that he’d finally squeeze the trigger on me. If so, then the next five minutes would be my last chance to say something to the world. This wasn’t a funeral service. And a certain kind of gay wit — bitchy, campy — had never been my forte. But a laugh or two was in order, so things wouldn’t get too heavy. Above all, my words had to be honest.
    I cleared my throat, and adjusted the mike.
    “I’ve always been a private kind of guy. So today,” I said, “it’s time to do something I’ve avoided doing for five years. Talk personal about Billy Sive in public.”
    My voice felt like it was filling the whole park. Echoes came back from the wooded ridges to the north of us.
    “He’d want us to remember him by talking about life, not death. Beyond all his passionate idealism, Billy had a passion for being practical. He’d say, Harlan, it’s kinda dumb to go on and on about my death, when everybody dies sometime. Life is what really matters.”
    People’s gazes met mine — directly, personally. The cyclist was looking down thoughtfully. Vince’s face, at the edge of the platform, already sparkled with tears. For years, I’d been so afraid that I’d fall apart weeping in front of a crowd. But now, there was relief at draining this old infected wound.
    “When I first met Billy, I’d known I was gay for many years. But I didn’t like being gay, and I prayed to God every night that I’d wake up straight some morning. It didn’t happen, and I was 39 and a passionate knothead, and adrift. Billy was 22, and he’d set his course. He looked at the Olympics two years ahead, and said, Yeah, the double gold in the five and ten thousand meters. He looked at me and said, Yeah, him ...”
    A little ripple of laughter went over the crowd.
    "... I looked at him, and said, Omigod ...”
    More laughter.
    Chino and Harry weren’t listening — their eyes were scanning, scanning.
    “No, I wasn’t very proud. And I was tangled in the myths that trip so many of us passionate gay knotheads. It took me a while to figure out the difference between passions that enslave me, and passions that free me. Somehow Billy didn’t get his feet tangled there. Don’t get me wrong — he had his heartbreaks, and made his mistakes, like all of us do. To Billy, love was wonderful. But other things were wonderful