The Front Runner

they rent the skates?" Billy asked Delphine. "I'm going to skate."
    "They don't rent them, cheri," said Delphine,
    touching Billy's cheek. "You have to bring your own."
    Delphine was madly in love with both Billy and John at once. Billy handled this with tact. He put him down gently by treating him as a potential mother. Billy had total respect and seriousness for all trans-vestites.
    That evening I finally relaxed toward Delphine myself, and decided he was delightful. I had seen so many flamboyant gay foxes that Delphine's relative naturalness of dress and manner took some getting used to.
    "I'm past high drag, cheri," he told me as we thawed out over something warm to drink in the Plaza Hotel. "I'm into couture."

To see him play with his drink and his cigarette holder, there among the potted palms and crystal chandeliers, of the Plaza, you would never know that Delphine lived in a tiny apartment on 123rd Street with ten cats and rent owing. He bought his beautiful clothes at thrift shops, and learned his French from a Berlitz record. "My limousine awaits," he would say as John put him into a taxi. He was Palm Beach, the Riviera, a box at the Metropolitan Opera.
    "I warn you," he told Billy that night, "I plan to go to the track meets, and cheer you and Vince and Jacques onward. I may even throw flowers at you."
    "I'll look for you," said Billy, smiling.
    He smiled at Delphine more than he did at me that night. Gentle filial smiles, devoid of sex. I would have settled for even one of those.
    Back in John's room at the Chelsea Hotel, we thawed out again and John ordered up a big ice bucket. Reposing in it were two bottles: one of French champagne, and one of sparkling mineral water, as a concession to Billy and me. Delphine turned on the color TV so we could watch the midnight doings over on Times Square. John popped the cork on the champagne. As he opened the bottle of mineral water, he made a loud popping noise with his mouth, and we all laughed a little. He filled the glasses.
    "Oh, bubbly!" Delphine cried.
    The television was playing "Auld Lang Syne." I felt as if my heart was going to break. It was 1975, and
    on August 18, 1975, I was going to be forty years old.
    We all touched glasses. "Heart's desires for all of us," said John. "For Delphine, a millionaire. For Billy, a sub-28 10,000 meter. For Harlan, love." His eyes rested on mine briefly, and I wondered how much he had sensed.
    "And for you, and for all of us," I said, "good luck with the Supreme Court."
    Billy and John hugged and kissed each other, and Delphine hugged and kissed me. John hugged and kissed me, and Billy hugged and kissed Delphine. But neither Billy nor I made a move toward each other. He just smiled a little, touched my glass with his, and said in an even voice, "Cheers, Mr. Brown," and drained his mineral water with the air of a debauchee.
    On the TV, everybody was kissing everybody else. I drank off my mineral water in one gulp too.
    SIX
    WHEN the holidays ended, Vince and Jacques came back to Prescott with their news.
    Jacques had died a thousand deaths before he finally told his family. A cultivated, sensitive family of musicians, they were distressed but trying to understand. I was glad that it had turned out this well. Jacques went back to his studies and training more relaxed than I had seen him.
    But Vince had had a bad time. His father was a union official in Los Angeles. He and his son were on poor terms already. He was ambivalent: proud of Vince's track exploits, but unhappy that Vince did these things while wearing a beard. When he heard that his son the miler was also a "fag," he was first incredulous, then livid.
    "He told me never to come home again," said Vince bitterly. "He talked about killing me. He even talked about going to court to make me return the money he spent on my education. Can you believe? Fuck him."
    He bared his shoulder to us, and showed us a new tattoo. It was the Lambda, the symbol of gay activism. He'd had it done in a Los Angeles tattoo parlor before he flew back.
    I was distressed. "That's just the kind of thing I think we shouldn't do," I said. "That thing is going to be visible at every meet you're in."
    "Oh hell," said Vince, "the old farts at the meets aren't going to know what it stands for."
    On February 17, 1975, something very important happened to us. By a seven-to-two vote, the Supreme Court made their now-famous ruling on sodomy. They struck down all laws regulating sexual activity by both