The Front Runner

finally came slowly over.
    "You know," said Jacques, "I think that if Vince ever comes out, he's going to be capable of just about anything."
    I looked at Billy, giving him a Parris Island chewing-out with my eyes.
    He pulled his jacket out from behind me, and mumbled, "Sorry, Mr. Brown. I don't know what came over me."
    He gathered up his books and, still flushing strangely, he left. I yearned to walk out of there with him, but I didn't.
    Another record started, a schmaltzy slow one, and the floor filled up with touch dancers. Vince was holding the girl close, his cheek against hers, his eyes closed. If he had noticed me there, he was being defiant. Jacques watched the pair, mournful and silent.
    I got up and left.
    Walking down the corridor outside, I felt deeply depressed. Billy was alone and full of craving. The only feeling he had shown for me had been a hesitant amiability, and a willingness to quarrel about his training. But even if he had shown love for me, I could make no claim on him.
    I didn't fear the girls who pined to creep into his dormitory bed. But I feared the next young stud who would provoke his interest. It could be anyone, any time. It could be Vince, even Jacques. In fact, I assumed that he had lied, that he had slept with Vince. Or if he hadn't, he would do it soon. He had said he was alone, implying he wasn't sleeping with anyone. Sooner or later, his natural urges would drive him to someone, if only for relief. Supposing Vince said, "How about it, Billy?" After four years of friendship, they would discover each other as lovers.
    In my imagination, I saw them dancing the boogie, not with girls, but with each other. They embraced, panting and sweaty, and they kissed. They fell naked onto a bed somewhere and made love with feverish abandon.
    The sensible thing to do was to cruise Billy while he was still available.
    Feeling a terrible, unreasonable jealousy, I trudged on down the corridor with my briefcase and out into the snowy night. He was not mine, and never would be. I would lose him without ever having had him.
    FIVE
    DURING Christmas vacation, Billy's father came to visit. The case he was working on, which was aiming at a Supreme Court decision repealing all sodomy laws, brought him often to New York to do business there with the gay lib front and the American Civil Liberties Union.
    When he came out to the campus, Billy showed his affection for him the way he showed everything. As John got out of the taxi, Billy came racing out of the dorm without his jacket and hugged him. John ruffled his hair and hugged him back.
    "Hey, kid, I've really missed you," he said.
    I was able to appreciate their spontaneity. My dad would have been boiled in oil before he'd have' hugged me, and so would I.
    I had an immediate liking for John Sive, and he shortly became one of the few real friends I ever had. There was much of Billy in his ease and candor, though physically they resembled each other little. John was shorter, darker, more muscular, with straight ebony hair (tinted, in that vain gay attempt to hold onto youth). Billy's mop of brown curls and his blue eyes must have come from that mother of his, Leida, about whom neither of them would speak.
    For many years, John had had a distinguished career as a corporate attorney in San Francisco, without any public suspicion that he was gay. He admitted to me that it took some doing, and some wear and tear on his psyche. "There was always the chance that Frances would lose one of his falsies at a party," he said. Finally, with Billy safe in college, he decided that he would come out. He quit his job, but stayed solvent because he had a good income from investments. (Luckily the
    stock market doesn't consider investors' sex preferences when it goes up or down.) John switched to civil-rights law, and was now, at the age of 51, putting his long shrewd experience to work for the gay community.
    Joe and Marian Prescott invited John to stay at the house a couple of days, and we all had Christmas dinner with them. It was a wonderful evening, with the smell of turkey and the Christmas tree, and nuts to crack by the big fireplace. It made me realize all over again how homeless I was, and how starved I was for some sense of family life. We sat close around the table, with candles and good talk. Billy was quiet and didn't say much, munching at the special salad Marian had made for him.
    The campus was empty, and the weather had turned sharply cold. Nearly everybody