Harlan's Race

for clap shots.
    Harry was sweet on Steve, but Steve was into his platonic thing with Angel, so Harry became the darling of Bark and any other A-list gays on the Beach who were not hostile to warmongers.
    Meanwhile, Chino had his Puerto Rican beauty, whose name was Tito. A few times, Tito walked all the way from The Grove to get laid. Chino was kind, but not interested in romance. All he wanted was Tito’s beautiful brown ass. Through their bedroom wall, we heard Tito groaning in Spanish. The rest of us wished we understood.
    The first week of August, it seemed like Harry was fighting a mild little flu that had gone through the house.
    Enough women came and went from Hotel Goodnight that we didn’t attract too much unwelcome attention in Davis Park. For a week in mid-July, a lady editor from William Morrow, named Liz Ostling, came out. She worked with Steve on the final edit of Pollen Kisses, his autobiography. For Liz, we dropped the bedroom noise levels, and became highly civilized. Then, in mid-August, Marian came out for the rest of the summer. My sis chewed us out about conditions in the kitchen.
    “No wonder some of you are sick,” she scolded us. We drooped our ears, and scrubbed out the refrigerator with baking soda.
    One more summer thing happened. Chino and Marian looked thoughtfully into each other’s eyes, and a faint blue lightning licked the air between them.
    It was hard to fault Marian — healthy young wife, with ailing old husband. If I were in the same situation, I’d be hungry for intimacy myself. But I had winced at the stingray of jealousy, so I wondered how Joe would feel. And I wondered about our cormorant. Was he bi? Twenty-five years ago, I’d traded those same bi looks with Mary Ellen Rache at a senior high-school prom. Two flesh-and-blood sons were bom out of that lightning. My ex-wife was now a sworn enemy, believing that I was a child molester. During the Olympic uproars, I got a hate letter from my youngest boy, Kevin. The oldest, Michael, had stayed remote. Had God punished me by taking my sons away?
    For the next three weeks, what we saw of Chino’s and Marian’s “relationship” was a ripple on deep waters.
    They never went in each other’s rooms. But suddenly Tito didn’t come around any more.
    Sometimes, on evenings when Chino was off duty, he and Marian walked on the beach, and over to the Davis Park marina. There, the Casino sat grandly on a dime —jukebox music and a straight roadhouse atmosphere. Bay-men flocked there, in hopes of getting laid by one of those liberated women they’d heard so much about. Our twosome lounged at the bar, where they were stared at as a “racially mixed couple”. They came back with war stories as haiiy as any you’d hear in The Grove. Like the one about the girl who did 100 guys in one weekend, for an average of two an hour.
    “Gosh, it makes the Meat Rack look a little tame,” Harry commented.
    In the third week of August, just as I started to think our tight security at the Hotel was a waste of time, my mail was forwarded from Prescott. It included the first LEV. letter in a while. The envelope, a “business reply” thing, had no postmark.
    YOU’RE HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME — WISH I WAS THERE — YOU AND VINCE MAKE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL COUPLE — LIKE YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR LOVE, LEV.
    When Chino and Harry read it, they exchanged glances.
    “This guy’s surveillance is good,” Harry said. “Usually it’s half obvious if you look for it. You know, the van parked across the street with all the antennas on it. The car tailing you. LEV.’s smooth. He’s got good hardware.”
    ‘Why do you think he waited so long to write?” I asked.
    “Maybe,” Chino said wryly, “he has to stop now and then, and make a few bucks. This is his way of saying he’s been tied up.”
    On the next trip to the mainland, Harry made a Xerox of this newest letter, and sent the original to Julius.
    Labor Day was approaching. With a shock, I realized that the summer was almost over. In a week, I’d be back on the Prescott campus, trying to be a teacher again.
    It was a seller’s market in clams, with everybody wanting to dine out or do clam bakes, so the price of neck soared to $35. Vince and I went out three days running, dug 19 bushels, and made $665. Vince had thrown off his flu, and he worked like a dog. We kept the cherries and chowders for the house, and everybody cooked a Rhode Island chowder and a clam pie. Chino, who’d learned to