Harlan's Race

volunteered, as we checked the car for a bomb before gingerly starting it. “So I’m probably clean on everything.”
    Vince drove the gleaming, racy car with verve down the Long Island Expressway. I brought up the subject of politics, pretending that I didn’t know anything about his plans for gay revolution.
    “What do you mean by ‘getting done with America’?” I asked.
    “What any committed activist would mean. Change. Real change. Like... the attitudes ... the laws that we need to change.”
    “Sounds like violent change.”
    “I shouldn’t have to... like... remind you, man... how violent they’ve been to us, man.”
    In downtown Manhattan, at Jacobs’ office, Vince bared his arm and pumped his vein. I did the same. Quietly, Doc suggested how to help him handle speed withdrawal. Afterward, going to a restaurant for dinner, we passed a small gay theater where a Casey Donovan film was playing. Vince’s film would premier later that summer.
    “God, I love movies,” he said wistfully. “Me and Billy ... at Oregon, man, we lived in two places. The track and the movie theaters. I want to do the great American film like you want to do the great American novel.” “Then do it. With your clothes on.”
    Next afternoon, as we drove back to the South Shore, I was at the wheel because Vince was having tremors. By the time we got to Patchogue and stored the car with a new company, his whole body was hurting for drugs.
    We took the Patchogue ferry back to Davis Park. “Mario was copping for me,” he whispered on the ferry.
    “So that’s why you were with him?”
    “I’ll quit, I’ll quit. Just... help me.” In Davis Park, as we walked down the ferry gangway, he said, “Maybe Steve still has some of Angel’s old methadone.”
    “Quit cold. It’s better that way.”
    We walked slowly home along the boardwalk. As the sun went down into smoggy hazes, an edge of conflict was sharpening between me and Vince. He stopped by a grove of scrubby wild cherry trees, and suddenly tried to kiss me among the branches. Blossoms rained down over us. I remember the tiny petals dotting his hair, catching in his eyelashes, sliding down the black leather jacket. His nerveless lips tasted of pollen.
    Just as I pushed him away, a straight family came into sight behind us, with their loaded kiddie wagons, like a miniature pioneer wagon train. I hoped they hadn’t seen us.
    “Don’t do that,” I said. “This is not The Grove, and I want to keep my nameless clam-digger image. Wait till we get to the house.”
    We were walking on now, fast.
    “You’re such a romantic,” Vince said disgustedly.
    “I’ve never been good with the Scarlett and Rhett stuff.” “The other night you carried me up the stairs.”
    ‘You couldn’t walk,” I retorted.
    Then my discomfort found more words. “I don’t love you the way I did Billy. This is different.”
    His angry eyes misting, he grabbed me by the lapels. “I don’t want Billy’s place with you. I want my own place.” “Quit grabbing me in public, dammit.”
    Finally, safe behind the dense Hotel trees, we stood with our arms around each other.
    “I’m sorry,” he said against my neck.
    This young bird of mine was a snowy egret, with one long leg caught in a snare, his great sunlit wings beating the air. I was trying to hold his wings down so he wouldn’t hurt himself. I was trying to free his leg. But he kept fighting me, thinking that he would get free his own way.
    That evening, Vince’s edge was sharp in all of us. We were still trying to forget Horatio’s death. Everybody was in the warm kitchen, cooking a bouillabaisse and a rich dessert. The James Beard cookbook lay open on the counter. We’d decided to try and put some weight on Angel. Vince was still fighting the withdrawal discomfort. The edge dug in when he insisted on talking about Billy, as he often did. Why was I involved with a goddam kid again? Twenty-six-year-olds seemed like such kids.
    “Falcon doesn’t look anything like Billy,” Vince remarked, chopping a board full of green onions.
    “I think he’s taking after Grandpa Sive,” I said, filleting a sea trout with my fish knife. “He’s got Billy’s nose, though.”
    “His nose is the size of a fucking raisin. How can you tell?”
    “Oh, just the way it looks.”
    “Don’t forget he’s 50 percent Betsy’s kid,” said Vince. “She’s little and dark too... ow!” as he almost cut his finger.
    “Only a bi would stick up