Harlan's Race

Steve had never gone to bed. Steve was frustrated, but passionately committed, to a platonic love by default.
    Steve pocketed the piece of glass. Then he tossed the ice from his tumbler, and walked away with Angel.
    Suddenly, at the sight of Steve’s noble patience and care with Angel, I felt ashamed. Couldn’t I be as noble with Vince? He might be wild, but he wasn’t a wreck like Angel.
    As I went up the steps to the deck, I stopped by the big pottery jar that stood there. It was half full of beach glass. The custom was for Steve’s friends to add their gems of joy or sorrow. Somewhere in there, were bits that Billy and I had gathered.
    I added my wild jewel, and went in to shower.
    “When the jar is full,” Steve had often said, “we’ll have a helluva party, and empty it in the waves... and start over.”
    Evening was hot, humid and still. The thunderheads vanished as we barbecued steaks on the back deck. Now and then, I broke into a hot sweat, thinking of Vince. Everything that happened in the house slammed me with thoughts of sex and danger. In the bathroom, Steve was jabbing an old syringe into his own bare butt, giving himself a vitamin injection as casually as if he were vaccinating a horse. For years Steve had been a health fanatic, shooting himself with different concoctions.
    “That looks like one of Angel’s old methadone needles,” I said.
    “It’s the only way I can be intimate with him,” Steve grinned.
    This gave me a shiver. Recently we’d learned that junkies share hepatitis B virus when they share needles. Doc Jacobs always kept me up on the latest medical news.
    “Isn’t that kind of risky?” I said, as diplomatically as possible. “Whatever Angel’s got, you’ve got.”
    As we ate dinner, Joe studied me from his deck chair, noticing my tension.
    “Harlan, you okay?” he asked.
    Joe had been like a father to me, ever since he’d hired me in 1970. His care and sensitivity had fed an old kid-hunger for father love. At the same time, I wasn’t ready to blurt the turmoil about Vince.
    ‘Yeah ... I’m okay,” I said.
    ‘You sure?” Joe pressed, and broke into hacking.
    Dinner over, Joe was tired from smoker’s cough. So about 9 p.m. the rest of us — Steve, Angel, Marian and I
    — assembled for our jaunt to the gay shore. At the last moment, I decided not to go.
    Steve’s eyes told me I was a chickenshit.
    The three disappeared along the dark boardwalk, toward the Casino, a bar at the marina. They’d catch the beach taxi there.
    Joe slumped on the sofa, looking strangely ancient, soaking up the warmth from the Franklin stove. Horatio, in a rare show of domesticity, was draped across Joe’s lap. I stirred up the fire and joined the old man.
    “What do you think, Joe? You think they’re going to leave us alone now?”
    Joe roused himself out of his torpor.
    “I hope so,” he said. “They’ve won this round. The next
    move is up to us. The next thing we do that provokes them.” For me, taking a new lover might be that provocative act. Especially taking Vince.
    “Do you think there was a second sniper?” I asked. “There’ll always be a second sniper,” said Joe darkly. This was not the old exuberant, optimistic Joe.
    “I used to believe that education is the answer to everything,” the old liberal added. “But you can’t educate people who think they already know it all. Especially people who want to kill their own kids if they grow up thinking differently.”
    Heavily, he got up and shuffled off to bed.
    Joe’s words left me feeling gloomy and defensive. I locked the doors and windows. Then I went to my room, got the .45, the old King James and a red pen. I had started in Genesis, crossing out passages that I didn’t agree with. Back at the fire, I opened the book, and some loose pages fell out. That infamous passage in Leviticus 20:13 was staring up at me.
    If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death.
    Almost breaking the pen, I made red marks through those lines.
    Vince’s rage was at this belief, and the strangers that it sent to war on our gay beauty. The picture of his hot eyes rose in my mind — the vibrant sound of his young baritone voice. Closing my eyes, I conjured the memory of that night he’d made his move on me — the hard embrace, the not-unexpected four-letter words of pure gay passion.
    The fire crackled. Out on the beach, long waves