Harlan's Race

my fingers, Lance said despairingly, ‘That’s it, Har. That’s it, then. You’re a hard case.”
    Valhalla Productions stayed in touch. I still didn’t commit to working with them. But they got a year’s option on Angel, with me approving the script that Paul was writing.
    The sun burned reddish tints into my shoulder-length hair. My feet grew hard as clamshell from working barefoot in the boat.
    It was the era of notorious people publishing their memoirs. Even the Watergate felons got to do theirs. So the notorious track coach was going to do his. I wanted my book to “tell it with dignity,” as Steve had said.
    “Are you guys prepared to protect my ass if I publish this?” I asked H-C on the pay phone one day.
    “Hey, sweet thing... absolutely,” Harry said.
    My writing-room in the Tower was fresh with repairs. The desk had a favorite Pollen poem of Steve’s push-pinned to the wall beside Falcon’s picture. I even slept here now—had put a low double bed in front of the Franklin stove, to dream with the flames. The four windows gave a magnificent overview. Across the dunes, bending grasses always told me which way the wind was blowing.
    One day, I was struggling with the chapter where Billy and I made love for the first time. Dreaming with my eyes open, I allowed myself to call back the feelings of that extraordinary half hour, and wrestled them into words. Did the rewrite work? Was it honest? Did it reveal too much?
    Beside me, the window was open. Just then, Steve’s poem drew attention with its fluttering.
    “Steve, what do you think?” I asked out loud.
    Suddenly the poem blew down on top of my typewriter. It lay there, moving its sun-yellowed edges like the wings of a giant butterfly.
    On other nights, I struggled with the chapter where Billy was killed, and cried every time I rewrote it.
    By Labor Day, the first draft was done.
    Now and then, for R & R, I wrote erotic poems. Like a thunderhead towering into a summer sky, that handsome boy of my dream grew to a man in my daydreams. He didn’t look like any real man I had ever fantasized about. Like an advancing storm, this lover lit himself with erotic lightning. He was older too — not a flawless 20-something jock out of Runner’s World. His scars said he’d been around. My name is Muse, he said, talking in my mind the way Billy sometimes did.
    But, like Billy, my Muse lived in the world of spirit. I couldn’t touch him, except by touching my own body.
    Just before Labor Day weekend, a strange man came walking along the beach from the west. He looked like the Village bohemians I used to see in the ’50s — French beret, soft tie knotted loose, jacket slung over his shoulder. A handsome sandy-haired man in his 40s, with a tense Irish-English thoroughbred look. He was barefoot, trousers rolled up, carrying tennis shoes over his arm tied by the shoelaces.
    Nothing moved in the area that I didn’t notice. So I watched him through binoculars, as he passed the house. He had the lean build that I liked, and straight, silky hair that ruffled in the wind. He headed on down the beach—probably on his way to some straight house.
    “Oh well,” I thought.
    An hour later, the stranger came in sight again—walking along the boardwalk to the Hotel, putting a bare foot squarely on the squeaking board. Michael and Astarte were still in town, and I was alone on the dock, working on my boat engine.
    The visitor looked at me shyly.
    “Harlan?” he said in a quiet tenor.
    “Who’s looking for him?” I growled.
    “I’m Chris Shelboume.”
    After my initial surprise, instead of getting shivery knees,
    I found myself strangely calm. Chris and I sat alone on the front deck. Up close, his silky temples were gray. Hard lines etched his face, and shadows filled those sky-blue eyes I remembered. Was this really him? The Chris I remembered was wired, high-spirited, full of laughter, boy silliness, and flash — the perfect mate for sober-sided me. This man was quiet, sad, wary. I couldn’t fit him into those volatile memories that had been my deepest, most precious secret.
    He said, “My wife gave me your message.”
    “You’ve been on a helluva long trip.”
    “I’m an AP stringer, so I travel forever. I’m like the Flying Dutchman.”
    “How the hell did you find the right house? Most people around here just know me as Har,” I said.
    “Oh,” he laughed, “I was discreet. I asked for a dark-haired 40-something loner. Everybody knew who