Harlan's Race

questioned his motive in writing to me?
    The ride was silent. Headlights streamed past us on the freeways, planes and choppers crisscrossing overhead, under the lurid mauve glow that was L.A.’s sky-color at night. The hematoma on my chest was throbbing. All I could think of was Michael, and the news interview we’d stupidly let him do. Michael stating his loyalty to his dad. It gave Chris the idea for the perfect unexpected move.
    As we went up in the hospital elevator, John told the lieutenant, “I don’t trust this situation. Our security man stays with my client.”
    The lieutenant frowned. “Police protection should be enough.”
    “Bullshit,” said John. “It wasn’t enough in Griffith Park this morning. In fact ... the LAPD almost obstructed a legitimate citizen’s arrest for an attempt at murder.” “Okay, okay.” Politically, the lieutenant could see where this was heading. “So you think there’s a group of religious nuts behind this, huh? Tell me more.”
    At Intensive Care, several police and detectives were talking, and two cops were standing guard outside the room. In their eyes was the old admiration for any man who was man enough to shoot queers, and the dislike for us queers who’d taken him down.
    “You’ve got five minutes,” the police sergeant growled. “He refused surgery, and he can’t stand much.”
    In the room, Chris was flat in the bed, with oxygen mask on his bandaged head. He was breathing with deep strange dragging sounds, like some alien fallen to earth, whose bones were grinding together inside of him. Around him, life-support machines did their electronic dances on their displays.
    At bedside, Chino stood right beside me. I looked down at this man whose threat had levered our every move for five long years.
    “Chris,” I said.
    After a few moments, Chris half-opened his eyes and looked at me through a fog of painkillers. They’d removed his brown contact lenses. In his familiar blue eyes, I finally saw the real Chris — not the one I’d kissed long ago, and remembered as golden romance, or even the one who’d visited me on the Beach last summer. This man was a pure hologram of belief— little left in him that was not someone else’s idea of gay, or someone else’s idea of straight. He’d pushed me away from the kiss. For the rest of his life, he tried to push away the thought of me, and all men like me. He had spent a lifetime moving in the human spirit’s maze of green. He knew how to be the perfect sexual shadow. Like a bullet, his look of love and hate struck so deep in me, that I had to armor my own spirit against it.
    Through the oxygen mask, his voice had an eerie inhuman tone.
    “Ah, Satan’s lover,” he croaked.
    His eyes closed from the effort.
    The detective lieutenant’s eyes widened a little at these words. My hair stood on end. At that moment, I was very far from Christian forgiveness. I wanted to grab Chris, and drag him out of bed, tear him loose from the IV, slam him against the wall like Chino had done.
    “So LEV. is Leviticus, huh?” I asked.
    His eyes fluttered open again. A faint smile hovered on his lips, still flaked with blood. The horrible voice was clearer now.
    “Stupid man ... I dangled it in front of you . . . sometimes I prayed you’d remember.”
    “Remember what?”
    His eyes held mine. His breath rattled deep in his lungs. From somewhere, he pulled the last of his strength.
    “The road sign. LEVEL ROAD. We always shot at the 0... you always hit it... I always hit by the V, so it looked like LEV. You gave me such a bad time. You were always smarter ... faster ... knew it all. And a better shot. How could you forget the sign?”
    His chest moved jerkily with what might have been a laugh. “Well, I outshot you, didn’t I?”
    Suddenly his voice faded, and he seemed to sink down, and grow smaller. His eyes misted, but he was too weak to cry. “So much pain ... Glad it’s over ... Stay with me.” His hand, that fine hand, bruised now, groped for mine. I pulled my hand away.
    “Chris,” I said, “I’m sorry I was a heartless little asshole. But you took a life. You helped kill Billy, didn’t you?”
    “Of course I did.”
    “And you want me to hold your hand?”
    Chris was gasping with the effort. He croaked, “Give me something of yours ... to take to Hell with me.”
    ‘You saw me cry this morning,” I burst out bitterly. “Let it be for both of us.”
    “Five minutes is up,” said a cop.
    The