The Front Runner

through all the human angles. I guess it was pretty naive of us. After the baby came, Betsy was so in love with him, and being such a good mother, that I realized John might be damaged emotionally if I made her give him up. And I was living alone—how was I going to look after him during the day? I didn't want him to grow up with babysitters."
    "What you needed was a Frances," said Vince, grinning drunkenly.
    "Well, I'm not into queens, as you ought to know," I said, again a little offended. "And Betsy and I had gotten along pretty cooperatively. So we decided it would be best for the baby if she just moved in with me."
    Vince was laughing with the soft raunchy laugh I remembered. "The eyebrows went up all over New York. Harlan Brown going straight, man..."
    "Listen, I wouldn't touch her. And she'd probably shoot me if I tried. This place is sexless as a monastery. I worry about that too. John and Frances had a warm and loving sexual relationship that Billy probably sensed even as a baby. I keep thinking ... I could never love anyone again like I loved Billy, but I ought to have someone around here that I care for in some way..." .
    "Aren't you sleeping with anybody?"
    "Oh, when I get horny, I go down to the city for a quickie, like I always did."
    "What does Betsy do when she gets horny?"
    "Well, I don't know. At the moment she doesn't seem very interested in sex. But she may grow past that, and bring a lover into the house too."
    "That'll be something new," said Vince. "A whole new kind of family."
    "It's funny," I said, "how I've come full circle. Betsy has taught me a lot of things about the way women can care and give. Her offering to have the child simply floored me. But their caring and giving, and ours, are just two different worlds. Theirs begins where ours leaves off."
    Vince was leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees, gazing at the log blazing on the bed of coals. "After Billy died, I suddenly found I wasn't a bisexual any longer. I don't know, maybe it was the hatred and resentment at anything connected with the straight world. Maybe it was a desire to identify myself more with Billy. But I can't respond to women any more. I'm in that three percent hard core now."
    "Look," I said, "you have to realize, it's very hard for me to talk about all that."
    Vince shook his head, closing his eyes. "You and I are going to talk about Billy. We're going to have it out."
    I stood up and was about to walk off, but Vince stood up and grabbed my arm. "You always wondered if I slept with him, didn't you?"
    I stood still and stricken. Finally I said, "Vince, please!" My hoarse whisper cracked in the still room.
    Vince was gripping my arm painfully. He looked straight into my eyes. "I loved him too. I loved both of you. Deep down, I always had this thing for you, and I wondered if you and Billy might break up someday. And I always knew you had a thing for me too, because you weren't pure like Billy."
    I closed my eyes.
    "We'd better talk about it," said Vince. "I have to tell you about Billy and me. I know he never told you much because he was so afraid of your jealousy."
    I sat back down in the wing chair, numb and trembling a little. Vince sat down on the rug before the fire, one knee drawn up, with his arms clasping it, his coal-black mane falling over his shoulders, the firelight playing in his splendid eyes.
    Finally he said, "When I met Billy back in 1970, I'd been so alone. I was competing with that awful secret inside of me, thinking I was the only gay in track. And then I met this gutty beautiful individual at this high-school invitational, and he wiped me out, and after the race we were talking, and I think he's gay. I just sense it.
    "So I invited him to have dinner with me, so I can get him alone. And in the car I just managed to drop my amyl nitrite on the floor. I figure if he isn't gay, he won't know what it is. And sure enough, he picks the popper up and gives it back to me, with this little smile on his face that gives him away.
    "Well, I just couldn't believe it. And I thought. Wow, man, we're gonna be lovers, there's going to be two of us running at that level of competition, it's going to be an incredible joke on the athletic establish-
    ment. So we had dinner and talked the whole night. I was so amazed to meet somebody who was peaceful about the things that were tearing me up inside. So I played up to him, and I said, Billy, I really like you, you're a dream, how about it? And Billy said,