Harlan's Race

baby girl.
    “Jacques!” I said, opening the car door on his side.
    “Hey, coach,” said Jacques LaFont. He gave me a tentative kind of straight-he-man hug.
    “It’s been a while since I yelled at you,” I said, hugging him back.
    “Goddam dipdunk lazy kid,” he said, imitating my Parris Island manner during track practice years ago. “Get those knees up! You run like a goddam girl!”
    I winced.
    “I don’t say stuff like that any more,” I said. “The feminists on campus would kill me.”
    Jacques smiled slyly. This young bird always reminded me of a ringneck pheasant — an artist of evasive flying.
    “Well, you’ll always be Mr. Knees Up to me,” he said. *You remember Eileen. And this is Ana ..
    I inspected their tow-headed youngster in Eileen’s arms. Ana looked at me and screamed. We all laughed. Hearing the uproar, Vince came out of the house, and stopped in his tracks. This was a delicate moment — the two ex-lovers seeing each other for the first time in three years. Vince recovered himself in a split second.
    “Heya, Jacques, old buddy,” he said, giving Jacques the same kind of sterile hug that Jacques had given me.
    Eileen studied Vince with a level stare. Jacques had told Eileen about his relationship with Vince. She had trusted his announcement that he was going straight forever. But her family hadn’t trusted it — they hated Jacques. She’d gone over their heads to marry him.
    Joe Prescott had cooked up the LaFont surprise. Due to a summer resignation, an assistant’s vacancy had opened on the science faculty. The job wasn’t much, but better than nothing. A moving van would bring their things in a few days.
    The birthday party was held at Betsy’s new house, half a mile off campus. The old two-bedroom stone house stood in a gnarly apple orchard. I wasn’t too worried about LEV. watching the party — Betsy had been in the clan for years, and it would be logical for us to celebrate with her, even if the baby’s father was a stranger. Marian and her daughter
    Sara had festooned the living room with yellow crepe streamers and autumn leaves in vases. Jacques and Eileen helped fix hamburgers and baked beans. We wanted an easy cleanup because of early classes in the morning.
    Just before it started to rain at dark, Vince and I arrived with the birthday cake we’d made. It was a carrot cake in a big pan, using a supposedly foolproof recipe borrowed from Marian. Some gay men are good cooks — we weren’t among them. But the cake hadn’t fallen, and it smelled good.
    Betsy opened the door into the chill autumn twilight, drenching us with indoor warmth and light. Her face glowed with pride at her new home — the first of her own that she’d ever had. How I wished she had a lover in it!
    We hugged her, and gave her the cake.
    ‘You guys made this?” she wanted to know.
    “By the time we got done, there was flour even on the front gate,” Vince joked.
    “Fire Island mellowed you two Neanderthals,” she said.
    Thoughts of security kept crossing my mind. Was it safe, even here? I looked around for bugging devices. Going outside, I walked around in the rainy dark to check the property, then came back, wondering if I was just becoming a psychiatry-textbook paranoid.
    Last came John Sive and Joe Prescott, bringing ice cream and candles. Joe had just been diagnosed with emphysema — he came up the walk with slow steps, breathing heavily, wearing the small oxygen tank that his doctor had ordered.
    “Happy birthday, dear Falcon ...
    “Happy birthday, dear Falcon ...”
    The baby was held up so he could see the one flickering candle on the cake. As we all blew it out, he gave a shriek of delight. Presents were simple — toddler clothes, gift certificates. John Sive gave Betsy an envelope with the papers for a trust fund that he’d started for Falcon’s college education.
    Falcon didn’t give a hoot about the presents — he was bent on celebrating Year 1 by walking for the first time. With most of us sitting cross-legged in a circle on the worn Oriental rug, we all encouraged his tries. He walked a step or two, and fell. Walked a step or two, and fell. His shock of black hair looked like it was wired for sound. Finally he was up, and going — across the circle, from Auntie Marian over to his mom. Then back across to Daddy Harlan.
    We all cheered. Marian was snapping pictures with a flash camera. Joe and Old John beamed from the wing chairs by the fireplace. As Falcon got