The Front Runner

think when Billy gets another year under his belt, he's going to be giving us some surprises. I think there's a reservoir of strength and speed that we're just now beginning to tap."
    John was so proud of Billy's run that he got pretty drunk that night.
    Those three weeks in Europe were the only length of time that Billy and I were able to spend together during the whole 1975-76 school year.
    Of course, with Vince and Jacques along, we weren't precisely on a honeymoon for two. But at least we could be natural with each other in front of them. Little by little, I was getting over my fear of showing my feelings for Billy in front of other people.
    Much was rumored about that trip. The gossips
    talked about little orgies for four. I am sorry to disappoint them, but it was a pretty innocent and proper affair.
    The Europeans hadn't heard the rumors yet. Or else they were that much more broadminded. Or perhaps it was just because we couldn't understand any of what spectators shouted from the stands. But we didn't hear the word "fairy" once while we were over there. Jacques was delighted by this, and his performance improved in direct ratio to the absence of hassles.
    The four of us traveled on the cheap, lost among the mass of young Americans who invade Europe in the summer.
    We had come over on a charter flight. The boys' student ID cards got them a further fare reduction. We carried nothing but one suitcase each, with our athletic gear and one or two changes of good clothes. In front of the American Express in Helinski, we bought a third-hand Renault for $250, and drove from meet to meet.
    From Helsinki we went to a meet in Oslo, and saw some of Finland and Norway in the process. Then we took a ferry across to the Continent, the salt breeze blowing in our faces. Then we were driving again, through Germany, Belgium and France. The Europeans, who subsidize amateur athletes, kept asking us how the U.S. could allow athletes of the three boys' caliber to go on a European tour under such humble conditions. We were really pinching pennies. But we didn't mind —we had a wonderful time.
    For the first time, I was as much a friend as a coach to, Vince and Jacques. Finally I let them call me Harlan. How can you make a guy call you Mr. Brown after you borrow his tube of Tinactin to put on your case of jock itch?
    We lived a warm footloose life. I had never felt so young and at ease—I was recapturing something of that summer with Chris. I don't think I was trying to lower myself to their age bracket on a false basis. It was just that my anxieties about getting old were finally falling away.
    At any rate, my fortieth birthday fell during that trip, and I observed it without any heartbreak.
    We celebrated it sitting in the sun by a canal in Bruges; eating some crusty bread and cheese. The boys gave me goofy presents. Jacques gave me a bottle of cheap wine. Vince gave me one of those weird European supporters with buttons (they don't have jock straps over there). Billy presented me with a little American flag, which I sewed on my knapsack.
    Vince and Jacques drank a little of the wine, and then we poured the rest ceremoniously out as an offering to the earth.
    The boys gave me a terrible razzing about being forty, and I loved it, because it was the kind of razzing they would give each other.
    "Now you are a dirty old man," said Vince.
    "Well, what was I before?" I asked.
    "Just a dirty man," said Jacques.
    "But I take a shower twice a day," I said.
    We laughed until we were dizzy. Billy nearly choked on the fruit he was eating. Finally we calmed down.
    "Someday we'll be forty," said Vince.
    "It's not so bad," I said. "If you take care of your body, and have the right attitudes, and have someone you can count on, it's all right." Billy caught my eye and smiled.
    We sat thoughtfully, gazing at the still canal. All around us were the mossy old stone houses, and the gabled roofs, and the church spires of Bruges. A pair of the city's famous swans swam slowly past us, with three half-grown cygnets paddling between them. Jacques pointed at them.
    "There we go," he said. "Subtract the female, and you have us."
    "What do you mean, Professor Audubon?" asked Vince.
    "Well, the cob—the father swan—he swims behind, so he can look out for the little ones He'll kill anything that goes near them. He's ferocious, really protective." He looked at me and grinned.
    Jacques was right.
    Day after day we fought our way through the summer traffic jams