The Front Runner

by Warren, Patricia Nell

  Billy raised his middle finger at the cabbie, and ambled on across the street.

  "Billy!" I yelled again, now on the corner. He heard me and turned. I ran across the street while the light was still red, narrowly missing getting hit myself.

  He was waiting for me by a florist on the corner. We stood looking at each other. Hot sweat poured down my body under my clothes at the thought of how the cab might have hit him. I felt so ashamed that I had thought he would walk off with that swimmer. I tried to put my hand on his arm. But his eyes were somber and reproachful, and he shook it off.

  We walked along the avenue in the sunshine, jostled by shoppers.

  "Look," said Billy, "we can't go on if you're going to treat me like this. You're afraid of losing me, but you're creating a situation where you might."

  "Don't threaten me," I said.

  "It's not a threat. It's a fact. If you don't believe in me, how can we love each other?"

  He stopped and faced me amid the afternoon stroll­ers. We were speaking in low voices, but if we'd shouted, no one would have paid any attention. Stran­ger things happened on Manhattan streets than two gays having a domestic quarrel.

  "Look," he said, "if I could show you all the thoughts in my head, you wouldn't see anything there that would make you jealous."

  I was feeling more and more ashamed.

  We were walking again, toward Fifth Avenue.

  "What can I do to make you more sure?" he said. "Whatever works, I'll do it. I don't care what it is. I just don't want to have these fights with you."

  We went along Fifth Avenue, under the budding trees. Then we turned into Central Park and walked along the paths. Cyclists and strollers walking dogs passed us. We walked apart, under the newly green trees, over the worn lawns scattered with rubbish.

  We sat on a park bench. Near us, a bum slept on the lawn in a stained overcoat, a newspaper over his face.

  "Look," said Billy, "if the bourgeois rituals mean that much to you, then let's get married. What the hell. Whatever keeps things peaceful. Would that help?"

  I took his hand and held it hard, wanting to kiss it.

  "Let's come out," I said. "All the way. Why should they tell us how to live?"

  Billy smiled a little. "The USOC will burn us at the stake."

  "Let them try," I said.

  We didn't have any great making-up embraces. First of all, we were in Central Park, and second, the quarrel had shaken us both very much. We roamed around the park just touching each other, full of a strange new hurting tenderness. We drifted through the Children's Zoo and petted the ponies and looked at the pigs and chickens. We wandered across the Sheep Meadow and fell into a game of tossing frisbees with some students. At the pond, we watched the children sail little boats, and helped one small boy rescue his capsized schooner. We went out on the lake in a row-boat for a while. For the first time, I didn't care if we were recognized or not.

  We wound up in front of the big carousel. It was turning, bright with lights and laden with children. The little organ was playing "After the Ball Is Over," and the horses were going up and down.

  "I want to ride on the merry-go-round," said Billy.

  I remembered how he'd said he wanted to skate just to get me pissed. "At least you won't sprain your ankle," I said.

  I bought two tickets. When the merry-go-round stopped, we climbed onto what we agreed were the two fiercest-looking horses. Nobody paid much at­tention—grownups lose their minds and ride this car­ousel all the time.

  The wheezy organ started to play "Daisy, Daisy," and the merry-go-round started to turn. We went up and down in a dream. Billy leaned his head against the pole, and just looked at me. Finally he reached out and held my hand, and squeezed it so hard that my fingers crackled.

  "Are you trying to blackmail me into buying you some popcorn?" I said.

  When we got off, a woman was standing there with two children and she said, "Filthy queers."

  "Speaking of popcorn, I'm starved," said Billy. "I haven't eaten since yesterday."

  We drove downtown and ate at that restaurant whose name I won't mention. We talked about the marriage.

  "Do you want to try getting a marriage license?" I asked.

  "I couldn't care less about being legal," said Billy, buttering his baked potato.

  Now and then two desperate gays would apply for a marriage license. They were always turned down. I decided we would forget about the license—we had enough hassles as it was.

  "We can go over to the Beloved Disciple, and Father Moore would marry us tonight," said Billy.

  I thought about this, then shook my head. A quickie ceremony in the gay church, like two teenagers at the justice of the peace, was all wrong.

  "Let's not rush," I said. "We want to do it the right way. We ought to invite a few people, the ones that matter. Your dad would be hurt if he wasn't included."

  "Whacha have in mind, man?" Billy teased. "Five hundred people at St. Patrick's Cathedral, and a recep­tion at the Waldorf?"

  We laughed. "No," I said, "we want something small and intimate."

  After dinner, we went to the Saturday night dance at the Unitarian church hall for a little while. The two-dollar admission covered free beer and soda. A bunch of gays were dancing to a record player, mostly slow dances. Billy and I danced a few of the slow ones, pressed together, our arms tight around each other. People recognized us, but left us alone. Billy felt feverish—emotional stress can drive up the tem­perature, and I worried what effect this blowup would have on his training. Now and then we looked at each other, with that look that acknowledged how close we'd come to the edge.

  We sat in the dimly lit church for a little while, and I prayed and Billy meditated. Finally we felt peaceful. Then we drove back to the college.

  The next day, I told Joe Prescott about our plans.

  "It may mean more pressure on the school," I said. "If you want me to, I'll resign."

  Joe thought about it and shook his head. "Marian and I would be happy to have your wedding here at our house, and you can invite your friends."

  Billy and I were married on Sunday, May 8.

  Few straights can comprehend the gay's hunger for dignity and stability. I can't begin to explain what that little ceremony meant to us both. The first time I got married, it was because I had to, in a daze, to something I wasn't fitted for. For Billy, it was one of those dreamed-of moments when he was going to be out front, running free, attempting to lead a normal life.

  Our concept of a marriage ceremony in no way re­sembled the straight concept, although we did borrow a couple of features and brazenly put them to our own uses. After we did a lot of talking and analyzing, Billy realized that I did not see marriage as a ritual, a sacrament, any more than he did. This was why he was finally able to give in wholeheartedly.

  We saw it simply as a formal public declaration of our love for each other, of our belief in the beauty and worth of this love, of our intention to live together openly, of our rejections of heterosexuality. Neither of us was a blushing bride led to the altar. Neither of us was bound to obey, or to be the property of the other. We were two men, male in every sense of the word, and free. Yet in that very freedom we bound our­selves to each other in an equality of giving.

  Our final decision was that we didn't want even a gay minister, or a service identifiable with any church. We ourselves would be, not the ministers, but the makers of the declaration. So we ended up writing our own service.

  It was a fine warm afternoon. The campus was silent, most of the students and faculty gone for the weekend. We had not announced on campus that the wedding would take place, because we wanted to keep the affair quiet and small.

  Sentimentalist that I am, it seemed fitting that all nature was bursting into bloom that afternoon. All over the big lawn around the Prescotts' house, there were masses of pink, red and white azaleas. We as­sembled behind the house, by a border of late daffodils, near where several ancient apple trees were clo
uds of bloom.

  Everyone we cared for was there: John Sive, Del­phine, Vince and Jacques, several friends from the GAA and Mattachine, Steve Goodnight and the Angel Gabriel, Aldo Franconi, Bruce Cayton, Betsy Heden, the team, a few other faculty runners and students who were favorites—about thirty people in all.

  Aldo's eyes popped out when he saw Delphine, who was wearing a long flowing chiffon dress with green flowers on it, and a large straw hat. He looked like he was going to the Queen of England's lawn party. "When do we throw the rice?" Aldo asked. But he gallantly stuck it out.

  We all sat on the grass, under one of the apple trees. They sat in a big circle around the two of us. Billy was wearing his brown velvet suit and ruffled shirt open at the neck, but he got hot so he took off the jacket. Jacques played some haunting medieval airs on his recorder.

  Then Billy and I, sitting side by side, read our little service. It consisted simply of quotes, each of us alternating. In his soft voice, Billy read from the teachings of Buddha. "There is only one law," he said, "and that is love. Only love can conquer death." Then I read from the Bible, mostly the Song of Songs.

  Our voices alternated in the silence, as the group sat unmoving, intent on us. We could feel their support and their caring.

  Then I put a heavy gold ring on Billy's finger. Looking at me steadily, he said the formal declara­tion.

  "I, William Sive, take you, Harlan Brown, as my man and my friend in body and soul. I will love and honor you for better and for worse, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, until death parts us."

  The magic of those old words (as amended by us) settled over the sitting circle. The only sound you could hear was a cardinal singing off in the woods. Billy put another gold ring on my finger, and I repeated the same words he had just said.

  Then we put our arms around each other, and kissed each other on the mouth. We held each other tightly for a few moments. It was the first time we'd ever dared do that in public.

  To my surprise, I heard a few muffled sobs break out around us. We drew apart, and saw tears on a number of faces. Aldo was shaking his head, as if he couldn't believe his eyes, but I could tell that he was moved and a little shaken.

  To break the tension, I said, "Don't tell me they cry at gay weddings too!"

  Everybody laughed. The weepers blew their noses. Vince sprang up in the apple tree and shook apple-blossom petals down all over the guests. Delphine dabbed his eyes with a lace hanky and said, "God bless you both, cheris." Everybody started getting up, all smiles.

  Betsy rushed up and hugged us both, red-eyed. "You're both beautiful. There's no bride to kiss, so I'm gonna kiss the two grooms."

  Billy grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. Betsy shrieked. "Harlan," he said, his eyes sparkling wickedly, "am I allowed to have a girlfriend?"

  "Sure," I said. "Have ten girlfriends."

  Billy paraded around the lawn with Betsy laughing and screaming on his shoulder. Nearly everybody there knew about Betsy, and the laughter was uproarious. Aldo didn't know, and his eyes bulged out again— he couldn't figure out what was going on.

  Then everybody, still with petals in their hair, had wine and champagne and cheese and other delicate snacks that Marian had put on a buffet table by the flower bed. Jacques played his recorder some more. Billy and I both tasted from a glass of champagne. "I guess Buddha will forgive me this once," said Billy.

  We all talked and laughed and were merry all after­noon.

  "You've really done it now," said Aldo before he left.

  "We know," I said.

  "Do me a favor," he said. "Don't announce it on the society page of the Times."

  "We haven't announced it to anybody," I said, "except the people here. But I guess the Times will find out fast enough."

  That night Billy moved out of his room in the faculty dorm and into my house.

  The team had done a job on my car and on Billy's bicycle. They decorated them with crepe streamers, tied on a lot of tin cans and old shoes, and a sign saying just married. This was their idea of a joke.

  John Sive looked happier than he had in a long time. "I really have good feelings about this," he said. "I think it's going to last."

  "It has to," I said. "If it doesn't, it's the end of us."

  14

  The alarm would go off at 5:30 A.M.

  As I sat up sleepily to turn it off, Billy would stir in bed beside me. Every morning he was there, and the morning after, and the next. He would stretch and yawn, his feet disturbing the Irish setter, who slept at the foot of the bed.

  "Rise and shine, meathead," I would say. "Hut, hut, hut."

  The setter would jump down on the floor and shake himself.

  Billy groaned. "I hate getting up at this hour." But he got up and went in the bathroom to take a leak. "You wanna know what my dream is for after the Olympics? My really big fantasy?"

  "What?" I said, making the bed.

  "Sleeping until nine every morning for a month."

  Our routine, during those pre-Trials weeks, was simple and nearly always the same.

  In the living room, we would do calisthenics and yoga to get our blood moving. This careful stretching and warming up was one of the things that was keeping Billy injury-free. Then we would pull on our shoes and shorts.

  Just as the sun was reddening above the trees, we would set off on our workout. Billy would run what­ever distance at whatever pace I had scheduled for the day. I would run my usual eight or nine miles at a 6:30- or 7-minute pace. Since Billy burned through his workout at nearly race pace, I couldn't stay up with him, so I let him drop me and watched him disappear among the trees ahead. I was always thankful for those sheltered private trails—if Billy were training out on the roads, some hostile person might try to run him down.

  Our different paces worked out fine. By the time I got back, he had finished and was showered and shaved and out of the bathroom.

  We fixed breakfast and ate it sitting at the pine table in the kitchen, with the sun coming through the windows. I ate my bacon and eggs, and Billy ate his fruit and sour milk. If it was his morning to make breakfast, he fried my bacon for me. Love is when you fry the other person's bacon even if you're a vegetarian.

  The feminists would have been touched to see how we dealt with housekeeping. Neither of us was going to be the woman, but neither of us liked living in a pigpen either. So we divided the chores fifty-fifty down the middle. One day I cooked and made the bed, and the next day he did. Once a week we managed to get a mop and dustcloth around the house. We paid Marian's housekeeper to do our laundry and ironing.

  Every other week it was Billy who rode his bicycle into Sayville, the village near the campus, to buy groceries. He was adjusting to living on a smaller bank account than his father's, and was very clever at helping me work out our budget. He could carry a heavy sack into the kitchen and announce proudly, "Hey, I got you some sirloin on sale at $1.95 a pound."

  One day, though, he came back and announced that a strange car had tried to crowd his bike down into the ditch. After that I made him go shopping in the car.

  While marriage had brought his $10,000 salary into the house, we lived leanly. I was still supporting my children. Traveling to meets cost us money every time we turned around. We had everything budgeted right down to the last pair of running shoes for Billy— and he went through a pair every two weeks.

  Every day, after breakfast, we worked on our school programs for the coming academic year. Billy was full of ideas for expanding the gay studies program.

  By 12:30 we were usually fixing lunch. I might eat some soup or a sandwich or whatever else was handy. Billy's lunch never varied. He always ate a special whole-grain cereal—oats, barley, millet, etc.—that he ground just before cooking. I had long ago stopped asking him if he didn't get bored with it.

  When he worked out on the tartan track, Vince often joined us. In July Vince was going to Europe with the pro tour, and was resting now. Sometimes reporters and track p
eople dropped by to watch them.

  The press had found out about our marriage almost immediately. When questioned, we didn't deny it. It was all over the papers. Bruce Cayton sold his photo­graphs and his story to Harper's Bazaar. The track people were still in a state of shock about it, and when they came around, they tried not to mention it.

  In the afternoons, with study and workouts over, we sometimes went over to visit Joe and Marian. Every­body lay around their pool and swam. Friends dropped in. The sun poured down on us, and we chatted and laughed. I got bronzed, and Billy got as speckled as a quail's egg.

  In the evenings, we usually retreated to the house. We liked just doing nothing together, and didn't permit anybody to break in on this. We sometimes cooked dinner outside—Billy's potatoes and my steak roasted a decent distance apart over the charcoal. He dexterous­ly grated raw carrots and beets over the potatoes. With a salad and nuts and more sour milk, that was what he ate.

  After dinner we studied some more, watched films of races to study Billy's Montreal opponents, analyzed his performance, read, took care of mail. Even if he wasn't in the room with me, some gentle sound told me he was in the house. His transistor radio playing rock softly out of respect for my eardrums. Or a cup clinking in the kitchen, or the sound of his bare feet across the old board floor.

  Occasionally, if John Sive was in town, we all went down in the middle of the afternoon to Manhattan for dinner and a movie, getting back about 9:30 p.m. We also accepted a few of the many invitations to speak before gay groups in the city, doing it free for fear the AAU might slap Billy with a trumped-up money-accepting charge.

  Before going to sleep, we often lay propped in bed, reading. Billy was reading Steve Goodnight's Rape, I remember. I often read the Bible, letting its comfort and truth sink into me. Jesus had said that the last would be first. Society said that we were the last. It could be Jesus had meant the gays.

  The bedroom window would be wide open into the summer night. We could hear the warm wind soughing in the cedars and spruces. If it rained, we could hear the eaves dripping softly, and smell the wet earth. We made love and went to sleep with our bodies touching under the sheet.