The Front Runner

police and the courts won't give you the time of day."
    "Parents have a legal right to kidnap their children, if it's for their own good," said Leida. She must have been reading about parents who kidnap their kids back from the Jesus freaks.
    "You try it," said Billy. "I'll file assault charges against you."
    "God will punish you both," cried Leida.
    Billy took two strides to the door and opened it. Outside it was drizzling sweetly. "Get out," he said.
    Silently Leida picked up her handbag and gloves, and walked out without looking at Billy.
    Leida must have checked into Billy's legal observations, because we heard no more from her. But she had struck into our lives, and left her pain.
    There were many other pains like that.
    Joe and Marian had a married daughter who lived in Chicago. The last two weeks in June, she sent her three small children to visit the Prescotts. They were
    two boys and a girl, ranging from five to eight—the sweetest liveliest little things you could imagine, all of them with blond ringlets.
    They all latched onto Billy, with good reason. He had his childish moments, and knew how to play with them. They were shyer with me, but still friendly. The sunny afternoons at the Prescotts' pool were full of shrieks, splashes and laughter as we all played with inner tubes and big plastic animal floats. I can still see Billy trying to get up on the big duck, and pretending he couldn't, and falling back into the water, while the three children screamed with laughter.
    Joe and Marian would sit in deck chairs, grinning, benevolent.
    When we were at the track, the three of them came running across the field to watch. The other summer-faculty children often came to watch too, so sometimes there were ten or fifteen kids there. They all knew they weren't supposed to yell too much, or get in Billy's and Vince's way. But they had their own little meet, running dashes up and down on the outside. The little girl, Julie, would run madly, her little legs pumping, her curls glinting in the sunlight, trying to keep up with Billy as he scorched past at a 4-minute pace. It took about ten of her strides to fill one of his.
    When the workout was over and the boys were warmed down, the three would run up to them, screaming, "Bii-eeee! Bill-eeeee!" I can still hear their clear, high voices, like birds in the woods. One by one, he and Vince would grab them and toss them in the air. They would scream hysterically with delight, and beg the boys to do it again and again. Billy would prance around with the little girl on his shoulders, like a horse, and she would hang onto his hair. Then we'd all troop home across the meadow, the smell of hot sweet grass in our nostrils.
    "Don't ask me why," said Billy, "but I love that little girl."
    "Sure you know why," I said.
    "Let's steal her," he said.
    But when Joe's daughter came to join the children, she was scandalized that her parents had allowed the
    children to hang around us. She was not nearly as liberal as her parents. Joe and Marian tried to reason with her, but she was firm. "It's best for the children," she said.
    After that, whenever she saw us, she would gather the children and shoo them out of sight. The three little ones didn't understand, they cried.
    "We sometimes forget," said Vince bitterly, "that we're lepers."
    During those sunny weeks, Leida's words often haunted me. She was right. I had children, but Billy's superior genes would be lost. As it turned out, they had haunted Billy too, and we ended up discussing gay paternity. The subject was brought up when we received an anonymous phone call that was more vicious than usual.
    To calm ourselves down, we went for a walk up along the trail where we always ran. It was a cloudy afternoon, with thunder rumbling softly in the distance and a feel of rain coming. We walked slowly along. The marks of our spikes were still plain in the earth from that morning.
    "It's something that bothers me a lot," I said. "When we die, there will be nothing left. When other couples die, there are children left. Even an inheritance. Even a name that is passed down. Even just a marriage certificate on file somewhere. For us, nothing."
    "I'll make a will," said Billy, "and I'll leave you my brown velvet suit and all my old track shoes." He wasn't joking, though.
    We kept walking. The woods were almost obscenely green. A fine mist was beginning to come down, and it cooled our faces and skins.
    "Maybe you're going to laugh at this," I said, "but