The Front Runner

around in the locker room one evening," he said. "They were being very Sexy, and Vince was taking off Jacques' belt. And old Lindquist just caught them cold. They sassed him, and said that gay lib had come to Oregon U and a lot of other crap."
    Now all three of them were talking heatedly, leaning forward. "Lindquist was fucking livid, man," said Vince. "He put Jacques on the rack and Billy's name
    came out. And Lindquist is a big straight fascist, so there went our scholarships."
    Jacques was now doing an imitation of a Lindquist tirade, complete with Swedish accent, that I would have found very funny at any other time.
    "Enemies uff sport, dot is vot you are," Jacques said. "Avay wid you, to de fire. Der vill be no Sodom und Gomorrah on my skvad."
    Billy and Vince were laughing, choking, till the tears came. Possibly they were just a little hysterical from pressure and fatigue.
    I just sat there looking at them, unsmiling, unable to say a word.
    Finally they quieted down and looked at me expectantly.
    "How come he didn't have you busted?" I finally said. "It's illegal in Oregon, isn't it?"
    "He didn't want it all over the papers that he had three queers on his team," said Billy. "You know, people would start wondering about the rest, about him ... I mean, he was just shitting in his pants, he was so afraid of what the papers would say."
    "Does that mean nobody knows but you three and him?" I asked.
    "No," said Vince bluntly. "He yelled enough behind closed doors that some of the team and the administration know. Word'll get around, all right."
    I went silent again, staring at my desk. I found that I was shaking slightly.
    Billy started talking again, slowly and softly. "We have to finish school. And we figured that we might get the same hassle everywhere else. So we came straight here." Out of the corner of my eye, I could glimpse his eyes searching me.
    "We have a right to run," he said. "We weren't bothering anybody. There's nothing in the AAU rules or the NCAA rules about the sex of the person you sleep with."
    I looked over into his eyes again, fighting to control myself. An ex-Marine ought to have better self-control than that. But I had been caught off-guard. I had been naive enough to think that, after four years' seclu-
    sion at this little college, the subject would never be brought up again and I could lead a normal life. But three of them. Macho gays, all of them. I should have recognized those leather pants of Billy's. I was ready to get mad at them for breaking into my peaceful exile.
    I made one last attempt to put up a front. "What makes you think I'll understand? What makes you think I won't give you a big lecture on the morality and purity of the American boy?"
    "My father said you might understand," said Billy.
    "Who's your father?"
    "John Sive."
    I shook my head. "Sorry, don't know the name."
    "He's a gay activist lawyer," said Billy implacably. "He's working on the Supreme Court case—that challenge to the sodomy laws. We told him what happened and that we might not be able to make a team anywhere, and he said to try Harlan Brown at Prescott."
    There was nothing diplomatic about the way Billy put this. He backed me right into the corner. I was shortly to learn that this was—always—his way. Billy lived for the pitiless truth because it was the only way he'd been able to survive.
    "If you don't want us, we'll understand," said Jacques, a little forlornly.
    I didn't know what to say. It was a big decision to make so suddenly. I knew that it would affect me, them, the school and—perhaps—track itself. If I took them on the team, people would talk about it.
    To buy a little time, I said, "Tell you what. I'll show you around the campus first. Prescott isn't like most schools. You ought to know what you're getting into."
    The four of us walked all over the campus.
    The sidewalks were scraped clean now. The snow was melting already, and falling from the trees into the snow below with little whumps! everywhere. Students bundled in polo coats, Mexican sweaters, sheepskins, army surplus crisscrossed the campus with their briefcases.
    "Prescott is an experiment," I told them. "About ten years ago, Joe Prescott decided that America was going
    to the dogs, and that American education was going to the dogs. He decided that what we needed was more human people, better able to survive, and cheaper, more practical education. So he turned his computer software company over to his board of directors, and out