The Front Runner

fact is —they can use things like that to hurt you. Let's not have any irrelevant provocations."
    "Yeah, right," said Vince in a low voice.
    "I want no doping. No taking under-the-table money. If any of you are hard up for money, come to me and we'll find money. I want you clean on money, so they can't use that against you." I paused a moment. "Have any of you taken money?"
    "I've been offered money, but I never took it," said Jacques. "I didn't need it, so why take it?"
    "Nobody ever offered me any," said Billy. "Anyway, I wouldn't..."
    "How about you, Vince?" I said.
    He shrugged. "I've taken it. Always."
    I sighed. "That's bad."
    "Everybody was taking it," he said.
    "I know," I said. "But the point is, they close their eyes to their favorites taking it. If you're blacklisted,
    suddenly they maybe discover that you've taken it, and whammo."
    "Then I guess the kiss of death is on me," said Vince morosely.
    "Well, we'll just have to be optimistic," I said. "At any rate, from now on, we have to think of every contingency. We have to figure out every strategy that they'll try beforehand, and block it if we can. Because at least one of you is going to Montreal, probably, and I wouldn't want you knocked off the Olympic team just because we messed up our tactics. Some people in track, and some people in the country as a whole, will be very unhappy if any of you represent the U.S. They're going to take it as an insult to our national masculinity. I have a feeling that these people won't stop at anything to keep you kids from setting foot on the Montreal track."
    Their eyes were fixed on mine, full of naked seriousness.
    "We don't know anything much about track politics," said Billy. "We'll mess up for sure."
    "You leave the politics to me," I said. I smiled a little. "That's what I'm for. All you have to worry about is running. And when I figure out the politics, you do what I suggest. That's all."
    "We may have to go to court before it's over," said Billy.
    "We might," I said. "Your father may have to help us out."
    "Shit," said Vince, "I'd love to see the AAU in court."
    "It won't be fun," I said. "Before this whole thing is over, we may have moments when we wish we'd never been born."
    "But it's worth doing," said Billy, softly.
    "Yes," I said, "it is."
    When they got up to leave, I pointed at the messy kitchen and said, "One of you stay for KP." I hoped Billy would volunteer. To my delight, he did.
    In another minute we were alone, busily cleaning up the piles of carrot peelings and nutshells and washing teacups. I was feeling benevolent and able to control
    my feelings. And I was hungry to know more about him. So I said, "Tell me about your father."
    "He's, coming to visit me at Christmas," said Billy, "so you'll meet him. My dad is a great guy."
    I was washing the teacups in the old-fashioned enamel sink, and Billy was drying them with one of my scroungy dishtowels.
    "So your father is gay."
    "My mother left him when I was about nine months old. She abandoned me. He married a gay after that, and the two of them raised me."
    "How did your father manage to hold onto his law career and live openly with a gay?" I asked.
    "Well," said Billy, "my father goes for TV's. None of my father's business colleagues ever suspected Frances was a male. He looked like a very slender Marilyn Monroe. He had beautiful silver-blonde hair. My father would entertain, and Frances would float around, saying, 'Another cocktail, darling?' Visually, he was incredible."
    "A hermaphrodite?" I asked.
    Billy shook his head. "No, he had male organs. I know, because I stumbled in on him once when he was in the bathroom. He was very modest 'and he screamed. After that I took it for granted that everybody's mother had a cock." He laughed a little, very busy with the teacups. "You can imagine what a shock I got when I found out the truth. I was in seventh grade, and one day the kids were handing around some dirty pictures. I saw a cunt for the first time. It was all red and wet, like a wound."
    He was putting the cups carefully back in the cupboard. "To me, the real trauma was learning about the heterosexual world. Know what I mean?"
    "So you're the second generation of the nation of gays," I said softly.
    "But Frances and my father broke up when I was twelve," said Billy sadly. "After that, he's had a whole raft of lovers, but nothing permanent."
    "So you grew up knowing everything?"
    "Shit," said Billy, "I was into junior high before it really sank