The Front Runner

it was affecting the team's training and morale.
    This "disruption" consisted almost entirely of the fact that a number of the younger, wilder members of the team like to run around with Billy, Mike and Sue outside of the camp, after they'd put in their work for the day.
    I can still see that convertible of Sue's bombing along the road from the ski area, and turning into the parking lot by the motel with a juicy screech of tires. It was full of athletes shrieking with laughter and Very windblown. They were serious about running, vaulting, high hurdles or whatever, but they were also serious about living. The car radio was blaring country music. Almost before the car had stopped, Billy had jumped over the side and hugged me.
    "If you pull a muscle doing that," I said, "you're going to get a two-hundred-dollar whipping."
    Mike got out and pushed Sue up to me. "Harlan, we gotta show you something." He was unbuttoning the sleeve of his paisley shirt and rolling it up. On his right shoulder he had a brand-new tattoo—a Capricorn.
    I shook my head. But Mike was still grinning. He pulled up the sleeve of Sue's striped short-sleeved jersey. There was a Gemini.
    I couldn't help laughing. They were all doubled up around me with silly snorts and guffaws. Billy was leaning -on the fender choking with laughter. It made me happy to see him like that. He was getting one of his first tastes of his dream: being himself, being accepted, being free.
    "Just to show you gay characters that you don't have a monopoly on the zodiac," said Mike.
    Meanwhile, the USOC was having a go-around with the press about the media rule. The Dick Cavett Show wanted to have Billy for an entire ninety-minute talk, as they often do with really controversial people. The USOC said nothing doing. Both the press and some of the other athletes were criticizing the rule, demanding that it be dropped. Finally the Cavett people asked if they could have several athletes on the show, with Billy as one of them, and agreed that sexual sociology would not be discussed. Grudgingly, the USOC agreed to this.
    Billy's eyes sparkled. "To be on the Dick Cavett show and not talk about being gay . . . that's fantastic. Maybe we're making some progress."
    Cavett's people asked for Billy, Mike, girl swimmer Jean Turrentine, Jesse Jones and vaulter Stan English. The five of them flew to New York. I went with Billy, and sat in the green room while they were taping the show.
    Cavett sat with all five of them, and they had a beautiful freewheeling conversation about athletics, young people, life, their hopes at the Games. Cavett's gags, and Mike's and Jones' witticisms, kept breaking the group and the audience up. Billy was wearing a soft brown plaid suit and had combed his hair and was being his sunny irrepressible best. On the seat near me, I could see his face in living color as the millions of TV viewers would see it. Whenever he spoke, the camera panned up to him. He looked strangely young with his new beard, and responded to Cavett with the warmth and candor that I knew so well.
    "How do you think you're going to do in Montreal, Billy?" Cavett asked.
    "Well, I've never been better," Billy said. "A lot
    will depend on the opposition. Especially Armas Sep-ponan. But if he pushes me, and if I can stay ahead of him, I think I can run some pretty amazing times. I think I'll go under 27:30 in the 10,000, maybe under 13:05 in the 5,000. I'm still discovering how much speed I have, so who knows ..."
    "What is your strategy going to be?" Cavett had done his homework—he knew how important that was.
    Billy grinned. "I'm not saying. But everybody knows I always run in front. I have the privilege of making everybody else wonder if I'll try to run away or set a slower pace.
    I had a lump in my throat when the show was over. All those millions of TV viewers who avidly tuned in to hear a verbal sexual circus had gone away disappointed. But they had seen him sitting there with the rest, looking so natural and so harmless, and maybe some of them had realized he was not a monster after all.
    After the show, Cavett told me, "I hope we can get him back after the Olympics, and talk turkey. He's a beautiful interview."
    "I'm sure he'll agree," I said. "He's not afraid to talk about it."
    As August ground on and the Olympics were only a scant two weeks away, the rumors that there'd be an attempt to drop Billy from the team grew more insistent. Finally one night Aldo Franconi called me.
    "Be ready,"