Harlan's Race

too. The beauty of our Earth. Friends. A meaningful career. One day a guy was hanging around who had passion on the brain — you know the kind of guy I’m talking about — and he asked Billy how many inches, and Billy said, Ten thousand meters . ..’”
    A big laugh burst from the crowd.
    For a moment, the thought of LEV. went away. The crosshairs went away. There was only what I felt.
    I noticed a few couples hugging each other. One TV news camera was pointed at me. Screw the media. Doggedly, I went on.
    “Billy knew there was a risk, that day in Montreal, five years ago today. But he ran, anyway — passionately. He died in the moment he was pulling on everything he was, to win.”
    A few tears were crawling down people’s faces, glistening in the sunlight. My honesty had touched them. Now their emotion touched me, and swept me into my own tears. My throat filled, and I could hardly speak. Damn —• I was going to cry anyway. Screw it — don’t give up. Keep going, Marine. Take the fucking hill.
    “Victory is a passion. It isn’t here —■” I showed them my stopwatch. “It’s here —•” I touched my heart.
    Tears were running down my face. Keep going, Marine. This time it’s your tears, not your rifle, that is your best friend.
    “That’s why no one can defeat us — as runners — as members of the gay community — as members of the human community — unless we’re being our own worst enemy. Unless we sabotage our own passionate efforts inside our own hearts.”
    My voice was failing, but from somewhere inside of me, I pulled a kick and pushed strength into it. It felt like all of Los Angeles was hanging on my next words.
    “The real enemy is inside of us, and it’s the thing we dread the most. In my case, the thing I’ve dreaded most passionately for five years is standing here in front of you and crying. So now it’s time for me to have that victory and let you see my tears.”
    There was a long stunned silence.
    Then I became aware of Vince getting up on the platform beside me, putting his arms around me. I put my arms around him, too, and the whole world got to stare at us for a few seconds. What the hell, Marine. Break the fucking pattern.
    Finally, I was able to get my voice clear, and finish up.
    “So ... thanks for coming today. You all do honor to Billy’s memory.”
    As the loud applause died, I was finally off the platform, with Vince’s arms still around me. My lover didn’t say a thing, just held me, with his chest heaving. It was hard to tell whether he was laughing now with relief, or still crying. The podium hadn’t been so bad. I had actually survived it — passionately. The way I’d survived everything else.
    “That was worth all the shit we’ve put each other through,” Vince said against my neck.
    People’s hands squeezed my arm. “Thanks, Harlan.” “Right on, man.”
    As the awards got under way, Harry and Chino were right at our elbows.
    TWENTY-THREE
    In our handicapped division,” said club president X Mason, “the bronze medal goes to ...”
    A grinning paraplegic gunned his wheelchair up the ramp that Vince had so thoughtfully built. As he parked on the platform, that lovely medal settled around his neck on its rainbow ribbon. Vince had wanted the slower winners to be honored first. One by one, those medals went off into the crowd, with their trace of Billy’s life inside, to be oohed and ahhed over.
    Chino whispered in my ear, “Harry’s still watching the hippie cyclist. Denny is about 15 feet away, to your three o’clock.”
    Our tension grew. Only three medals remained on the table.
    “And now,” Mason intoned, “for our top three overall, in the men’s division. The bronze goes to Vince Matti.. ”
    My knees started shivering, and not with sex. From where Denny stood, to the mike, was about 25 feet—an easy shot. Harry had moved out of the cyclist’s sight, and watched him lean his bike on a tree and enter one of the latrines.
    As Vince got up on the platform, tremendous applause went up, mixed with exuberant gay wolf-calls, digs and wisecracks. In the summer of ’78, he’d been the flavor of the month, then dropped from sight. Now he had seized community attention again. He acknowledged the tribute to his charisma with a knowing grin, that probably gave hard-ons to half the men in the crowd. I had actually matured to the point where this kind of thing amused me instead of driving me crazy.
    Vince walked to the mike. Our