Harlan's Race

.22. Witnesses placed the kid in the wrong place to take the shot. So charges were dropped.

PART THREE
    Rotten Apples
    TWELVE
    The next year swung us from light to dark, and back. For a while, LEV. was inactive. Had he died? Lost interest? Earning money doing something else? Doing other hits? Or just waiting for me to let my guard down?
    What would I write? How could I chronicle the terror? Train my own crosshairs on bigotry? Steve’s agent, Ernie Glover at Esterhazy & Nebla, read some of my short stuff and thought it was publishable. For the first time since I’d told George Rayburn, “Anything but the podium,” I felt embarrassed, and wondered if I should climb back on it.
    But chasing words was like chasing that phantom — a kick that fell short.
    November 1978
    As the first winter sleets slicked the campus sidewalks, I was still missing Vince — tormented as a druggie. Before Billy, tricking would have solved my problem. But I was tired of believing that a gay man has to chase ass to keep his franchise.
    In November, the gay community celebrated Harvey Milk’s election to San Francisco supervisor. He was the first gay activist to hold a major office, and optimists took this as a sign we were getting somewhere. The religious fanatics hated Harvey’s guts, and I knew from John Sive that he lived like I did — with death threats. But he went around openly with no security, and said in a speech, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”
    In mid-November, I met Michael’s fiancee.
    Astarte Jones was spectacular, all right — a flamingo beside Michael’s sea gull. Two years older than Michael, she headed fundraising at Hames-West. She was the “new woman”—liberated, confident, forthright, dedicated to gyms and diet — and her delicately ripped arm-muscles showed through her silk blouse. If she’d been the heroine of that horrifying singles thriller Looking for Mr. Goodbar, she’d kick Mr. Goodbar to death with her bare feet.
    “Harlan, when I read the crap about you in the press,” she said, “I want to kill someone.”
    The two of them had been sleeping together for a while. I figured she’d taught my virginal kid. Their love felt devoted, but quiet, with careers taking most of their energy. She had her own apartment. Why weren’t they already living together? Were they carrying ’70s independence to the max? Or did Michael have questions about himself?
    Tests on Angel showed he had toxoplasmosis. His problems with seeing, speaking and walking meant that the tiny organism was attacking his brain. His immune system was shot too — a complete blood count showed only a few T-helper lymphocytes. I had never heard of T-helper cells, and now learned that they help make antibodies. A normal person has from 500 to 1200 T-helper cells in a cubic milliliter of blood. Striper tested positive for Toxoplasma. So the cat was banished to the vet’s, and treated.
    I junked plans to run in the AAU masters’ mile, so I could be with my two friends.
    Meanwhile, Michael had me wondering if he was bi. Over Thanksgiving, he and I went to a cocktail party at Marvin Jakes’ penthouse apartment on Central Park South. If Mikey was going to be a doctor, I wanted him to know my rich friends. Fifty guests, cream of the gay New York “A”-list, gathered amid Marvin’s collection of Asian art. As the men swallowed hors d’oeuvres, their eyes swallowed Michael. He was wearing an Irish-tweed suit, that I had dragged him to Bergdorfs to buy. It set off his Celt looks and green eyes. Michael was the least vain male I ever met, so he had no idea how good he looked in it.
    “Gawd, your kid is cute,” Steve’s literary agent blurted.
    “You’re prepotent, Harlan,” said socialite Russell Houghton. He was from the horsey set upstate.
    “I’m what?”
    Russell laughed. “That’s a horse-breeding term. The sire puts his stamp on his get. But are you prepotent for gay?”
    My son handled the attention with surprising sophistication. When several guys asked for his phone number, he gave them mine.
    For Thanksgiving, Michael didn’t go home to his mother’s. He told Mary Ellen he was seeing me, and she was furious. Michael, Astarte and I planned to cook a turkey for Steve, Angel and friends at his apartment. It was the first time in twenty years that I’d eaten this meal with any blood kin.
    Just before the holiday came shattering news from San Francisco. Harvey Milk’s