The Front Runner

was saying good-bye to it.
    "Have you been taking magnesium?" I asked.
    "No," he said in a stifled voice. "Just eating spinach and stuff."
    "Well, get on the Magnesium Plus then," I said. "If you're out, I'll give you a bottle." I pretended I only cared about that: my athlete's condition.
    Without looking at me, he started toward the shower room.
    "One more thing," I barked. "It's Mr. Brown. Don't forget it a second time."
    But that night, lying awake, in bed, the memory of his body came back to me like a hallucination. My imagination staged a hard-core encounter between us, right on that locker-room bench. We would both be half-mad with desire, like in all the gay skin flicks I'd seen. Our panting and gasping would echo in the silent locker room. It was amazing how many different ways I could think of for us to make love to each other without moving off that bench. I rehearsed it over and over, and had an ejaculation just thinking about it—I didn't even touch myself.
    In my misery, I tried to pray. It didn't make much sense to pray after having indulged in erotic fantasies like that, but I did. "Out of the depths I cry unto thee, oh Lord. . ." But then all I could think of was the Song of Songs. ". . . That at night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth, I sought him but found him not. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me. Refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love."
    About 3:30, I decided that the only thing to do was put in a really long run. So I pulled on my running clothes and shoes and went out. It was still dark, but light was coming in the east and the first birds were already singing in the dark woods. It was the kind of spring morning that might have delighted me, but I found the bird songs sad and oppressive.
    I ran for three hours, and covered about twenty-five miles. The run put me into the necessary trance, and emptied my mind. But the last six miles, I was nearly falling apart. My legs were hurting and dead. When I got back to the campus, I was exhausted, sick, shaky and more jumpy than ever. I was a fine one to criticize Billy—I was now physically over the edge too.
    That afternoon I had the yoga class for the men's and women's teams. As usual, when the weather was warm, we had it on the grassy infield of the track.
    Billy hadn't inspired this class—we'd started it the year before, when we noticed a few runners elsewhere adapting yoga into stretching exercises. Flexibility is crucial in running, especially for avoiding injury. My kids and I had been happy with the class—I was making them supple, and they could imagine themselves as Siddarthas in sweatsuits.
    So I was walking up and down before the rows of kids. The girls were on the left, in their red gymsuits, and the boys were on the right, in their blues. Neat rows of supple young bodies, doing this yogic contortion, then that, at my order.
    "Semi-plow," I said. They all bent slowly backward from a kneeling position and touched their heads to the grass.
    All but Billy Sive. He was in the lotus position, in
    the second row of the male team. He was sitting a little slumped, slowly picking early dandelions out of the grass, and his face looked strangely vacant. Sure, I told myself, you refused him sexually and you humiliated him. He probably hates you now.
    But the sight of him letting himself go like that infuriated me. I was exhausted and edgy, and I lost my temper completely.
    "Billy Sive!" I barked.
    He looked slowly up at me.
    "Semi-plow, on the double!" I said.
    He dropped his eyes and went on pulling dandelions, making a little bouquet. He put the bouquet to his mouth.
    I walked between the lines. I never showed my three top runners any favoritism before the others, boy or girl, and this was going to be one of those moments.
    "Billy Sive," I said, between my teeth, vibrating with anger. I was furious at him for the mess he was making of my peaceful life.
    Instead of doing the semi-plow, he got up slowly and looked me right in the eye, with his candid, vacant gaze. His lips were yellow with pollen.
    All the kids lost their meditative look, and their eyes moved to us. They waited, kneeling.
    "You're the one who wants to go to Montreal," I said.
    He dropped the dandelions, turned and walked off. There was something in his manner of the battle-shocked soldier. In my anger, I decided that a little military stuff would bring him around.
    I followed him away from the row of kids. "Billy," I