The Front Runner

Gee, Vince, I like you too, but the thing is, I've got a lover right now, I'm really serious about him. And I said, How's he gonna know, and anyway, we owe it to each other, we're these two track brothers, and a lot of other crap..."
    Vince suddenly turned his head and looked up at me. "And do you know what he told me?" He put his head on his drawn-up knee, half laughing, half sobbing. "He told me, I go to bed only with people I love."
    The house was silent. All I could hear was the sighing of the fire and the ticking of snow against the win-dowpanes. I felt something beginning to crack inside of me. What came out first was laughter. I could just see Vince the great firebreathing Scorpio stud running smack up against Billy's Virgo firmness, and it struck me as funny. Vince had Billy's way of phrasing things just right.
    And suddenly Billy was there in front of me, alive and real.
    Vince had looked back at the fire. "So I decided— you know me, Harlan—as far as I'm concerned, lovers are a dime a dozen. A friend like Billy was worth a hundred lovers. The main thing was, I didn't feel alone any more. After the meet, I went and visited him and his dad in San Francisco. And one night we lost our minds and went into a tattoo parlor and had our sun signs put on. We'd decided that we'd face our destinies bravely... ."
    I had my hands over my face. I was making strangled animal-like noises. Was this what crying was like? Yes, definitely, there were hot tears running out of my eyes.
    Vince got up on his knees, put his arms around me and held me silently. I cried on his shoulder, both my hands clenched in his jacket. He kissed and fondled my bursting head, and pressed me against his chest. My body was so racked with spasms that the muscles felt ready to tear loose from the bones. If this was crying,
    I was grateful to have been spared other crying bouts back through the years.
    After a while I felt Vince's body begin to shake, and realized that he was crying too. Vince was a silent crier—I couldn't hear anything. But I felt his face, and it was as wet as mine.
    When we'd both quieted down, Vince told me everything about Billy's life, from his senior year in high school through his meeting me. That whole lost era of Billy's life, that I'd been so afraid to know in detail, opened up to my eyes. I saw him in a thousand anecdotes, and not once did Vince tell me anything that was not consistent with the picture I already had of him. Slowly the image of Billy lying dead on the track in Montreal began to fade, and I could see him warm and living again, running with his long soft stride, his hair lifting in the sunshine.
    The dawn light was showing at the windows. First an aching gray, then a tender red light. The snow had stopped. Outside the landscape was smothered in white, the tree limbs hanging heavy, the bushes bent over. I made Vince some coffee, to help him sober up, and myself a cup of tea. Betsy came into the kitchen to give the baby his early morning feeding, and said, "Are you guys still up?" We all sat around the kitchen table. The cups clinked on the saucers, and the baby sucked greedily at Betsy's breast.
    "Harlan, where did you scatter his ashes?" Vince asked.
    "Up there in the woods."
    "If you don't mind, I'd like to go up there."
    So we put on warm clothes and overshoes and went out.
    As we started up the main trail, the trees and bushes were bent into a pure tracery. They were sheltered against the spring, their buds waiting. The ferns and wildflowers had already made their new growth, and were waiting under the snow. The sun was already so bright that we squinted—we should have worn dark glasses. We crossed the track of a rabbit that had come out from his warm hole under the snow and was off somewhere. The birds were stirring too—we could hear
    the soft winter whistles of the titmice and the song sparrows as they looked for food.
    A deep, peace was coming over me, and a sweet release. On that path I could remember Billy without pain, remember him loping along hardly leaving a spikemark on the earth, looking over his shoulder to say, "Seven minutes."
    When we turned off onto the side trail, we had to push our way through the snowy brambles, snagging our pants. The brush seemed to have grown thicker here, as if to discourage anyone from coming this way again.
    Finally we reached the top of the slope, and looked down.
    The little clearing was virgin white. All around it, the mountain laurel was bent under the