Harlan's Race

jostled naked torsos, here and there a black leather vest. By contrast, Bruce, in hornrimmed glasses, looked like a Foreign Service functionary forging through the claustrophobic crowds of some Bangkok avenue. Gay men eyed Bruce suspiciously, thinking he was FBI. Carloads of straight tourists drove slowly by, eyeing the gay men.
    The three of us sank down in the dimly lit Cafe Figaro. Bruce and Vince chain-smoked, adding to the haze.
    ‘Vince, you’ve been a visible activist. Maybe you can tell me ... where are the violent gay radicals?”
    “American radicalism has failed,” shrugged Vince. “Gay violence has time-lagged behind other movements. Seems like it’s time for Gay Panthers. I mean ... I’ve been on this story two weeks, talked to Rayburn and other people, and I feel like I’ve been fire-hosed with gay anger.”
    Vince mused his answer. Clearly he was walking the discreet side of honest.
    “SDS and Weatherman flopped,” he finally said, “because they thought millions of Americans would join them.”
    The cafe was crowded, hot, noisy, pressing us into our comer with its noise. Amid the noise, sipping my tea, I realized that I’d never heard Vince be so articulate. “You’re not a Maoist, are you?” Bruce asked.
    “Shit no. Communists don’t treat fags any better than capitalists do. Look at Castro ... he treats us like Hitler did. Reinaldo Arenas, their best writer, is in fucking prison. That’s ... like ... what makes our struggle so unique.” “So what is the alternative to violence, for gay people?” Bruce pursued.
    “Guilt, and a good body.”
    Bruce knew gay humor. “Seriously, now.”
    “If Gay Panthers were smart, they’d study what happened to all the other violent American fronts,” said Vince. “Leam from their mistakes. Nobody wins a war of attrition... especially if you’re outnumbered. We gays and lesbians are outnumbered. Ten to one, at best. Terrible odds for Panthers, if you ask me.”
    “Answer my question,” said Bruce patiently. “What would your non-violent strategy be?”
    Vince grinned.
    “If I told a reporter my strategy,” he said, “I’d be dumb.” Brace looked at Vince musingly through the smoke. “Are there any pro-violence groups that I might talk to?” he asked.
    “I don’t know of any,” Vince shrugged.
    “George Raybum said you might know.”
    “George is out of touch with my thinking.”
        The tactic failed. “Burned out on activism,” said Vince gloomily. “I gotta get a capitalist job. Or sell my car and take some film courses at NYU.”
    I watched Vince try to juju this adroit old investigator off his trail.
    “Bruce,” Vince added, “don’t go looking for commie conspiracies. Some ordinary guy whose lover was beat to death by cops is more likely to fire-bomb the White House.” Bruce turned to me, hoping to use me to open Vince up. “Harlan, what’s your view on gay activism these days?” “I still think the modified Gandhi approach can work for us.”
    “As I recall,” Bruce drawled, “‘modified’ means that Gandhi carries a loaded .45 in his loincloth.”
    Like Vince, I wasn’t going to tell Bruce my real thoughts either. “I’ve never fired a shot,” I countered. “And there are enough gays in America to make peaceful boycotts work. One in ten still gives us an edge, if we cut where it counts.”
    A few mornings later, back on campus, I opened my door to find a National Intelligencer reporter and his photographer there. They’d eluded campus security, and lurked in my bushes all night. Blood rushed to my head —-I’d let my guard down a little. If they’d been LEV., he could have shot me dead on my front step.
    “Mr. Brown,” the reporter said, “can you tell us if you now have a relationship with Vince Matti? And we understand that Jacques LaFont is back ...
    Media scrutiny had started in early 1976, when Billy’s and my relationship was exposed. I was 40, Billy was 23.1 was his teacher, his coach. Everything about our story hit a pulsing nerve in the rotting tooth of American puritanism. Billy’s short, mundane life had offered little juice to the moralists. But my “dark past” offered ripe squeezings. In New York City, after I lost my Penn State