The Front Runner

faces. Pickets, demonstrations, lawsuits, all reminiscent to the AAU of the 1967 black demonstrations at Madison Square Garden against the racist policies of the New York Athletic Club.
    "What kind of people are coming up to picket?" asked Reel.
    "Gays," said John quietly. "Four busloads, I be-
    lieve. People from the New York Mattachine Society, the Gay Activist Alliance, the Gay Youth ..."
    We watched them consider the thought of homosexuals picketing the AAU convention.
    "Can it be called off?" said Mel.
    "Sure," said John cheerfully.
    "In other words," I said, "before we leave here, you show us a final draft of your counter-memo lifting the ban. You distribute the memo tomorrow at the convention. There won't be any demonstration. It'll be business as usual, and a minimum of publicity."
    "Can you guarantee us about the publicity?" Stein-bock asked.
    "We don't control the press," I said. "We can't guarantee anything. But, like we said, we won't be going around looking for it."
    "All right," said Mel. "I'll draft the memo right now, and we can look it over."
    "In other words, if Billy sends in an entry for the national cross-country, it'll be accepted."
    "Of course," said Steinbock. He pulled some sheets of paper out of his briefcase, and started writing industriously.
    I had no joyful feelings as I sat there watching him write. We had won a respite. But I knew—and Steinbock knew—that now there was all the more reason to trip the boys up with some bona-fide regulation. This was why he had given in so suddenly, and so graciously. Why risk legal trouble when, if he waited, the boys might play into his hands in some other way?
    In November, Billy won the national cross-country championship. And that same month, the hunters shot the first of my young birds down.
    One evening Jacques and I sat alone in front of the fire in my living room, and he told me that he was quitting running for a while.
    "I just can't take the abuse any more. I don't even enjoy running now, it's gotten to be an ordeal. It's politics, not sport."
    I felt so sad, sitting there, looking at the firelight play on his bushy auburn hair and beard and his
    corduroy jacket. He was sitting stooped, his expressive Gallic eyes empty and staring into the fire.
    "I have to get away from it for a while and think things through," he said. "My family have been very understanding, and after the spring semester I'm going home to stay with them for a while."
    He was silent, clasping and unclasping his fingers. Then he looked slowly up at me.
    "I feel very guilty at all the time and the effort and the money everyone has invested in me," he said. "Especially you. I feel that I've failed you."
    I shook my head.
    "But obviously I'm in no shape to think about the Olympics," he added softly.
    "The Olympics aren't that important," I said. "I'd rather see you jogging two miles a day and happy."
    His eyes drifted back to the fire, and his hand slid down to pat the setter, who was leaning blissfully against his leg. "And the whole thing has kinda come between me and Vince too. I'm totally confused, I don't know what I think about anything any more. I remember how simple it seemed when I first met him. That feeling is just gone. But obviously I still feel something for him, because when we have a fight, I feel like I'm going to die. I deliberately hurt him, and then when I see him bleed, all I can think of is doctoring him up. It's funny how vulnerable Vince is; he comes on as such a tough...."
    "He's vulnerable only to people he cares for," I said.
    "Maybe that's it," said Jacques.
    "Well, you know I'm always here if you need me," I said. "For anything."
    "Who knows," said Jacques, "I may be back for the next Olympics, with a whole new set of attitudes . . ." He smiled a little. "Actually I won't stop running completely. If I do, I'll probably gain twenty pounds. I'm just dropping competition. I'll go out for seven, eight miles a day. Maybe I can learn to enjoy it again."
    I sat studying him, thinking how they had done it. They hadn't needed to hit him with the rule book. All they'd needed was psychological terrorism.
    Meanwhile, winter was coming on, and Billy was really burning.
    He was having another of his breakthroughs. His times were dropping spectacularly all across the two-to-six-mile range. We didn't think of him as a two-miler, but that winter he was unbeaten in that event in the U.S. He even broke 4 in the mile, running a second-place 3:57.48 at the