The Front Runner

by Warren, Patricia Nell

  Now we were all beguiled. John grinned. Vince leaned back and laughed out loud. Aldo cackled and slapped his knee.

  "It's a gamble," I said.

  "I like the gamble," said Armas. "In Montreal, Billy and I are gambling also."

  Billy's eyes sparkled wickedly. "All right. We'll do it just as you say."

  "In the meeting already is my IOC delegate," said Armas. "The Olympic committee in my country is maybe not supporting me. But they are respecting me in this thing. They cannot force me to run. So . . . let us go in then."

  We watched Billy, Aldo and Armas walk off to­ward the meeting room.

  John was rocking with laughter and shaking his head.

  "Armas should have been a lawyer," he said, "instead of a fireman."

  Later Billy and Aldo would describe the meeting to me.

  All but one of the eligibility committee was pres­ent. They looked a little taken aback when Sepponan walked in with Billy. None of them, of course, knew why he was there, but they were obviously uneasy. Sepponan sat down by his IOC delegate and didn't say a word.

  Billy stood, with his hands casually in his pockets. He was wearing the brown plaid suit that he'd worn on the Dick Cavett Show. He had himself very much under control. He was pleasant and precise, and his voice was soft.

  "I think I can set your minds at rest about my amateur status," he said.

  He paused a moment, looking around at all of them. "I was a gay before I was a runner. Do all of you who aren't American understand the word gay? It's our word for homosexual."

  A few heads nodded, a few grunts of assent.

  "Okay," said Billy. "I was invited to help develop a gay studies course at Prescott because I was gay, and because I majored in political science. I was not invited to do it because I was a runner. We had two other gay athletes at Prescott. One of them, Vince Matti, was also hired to help with the course. He was a sociology major. The third gay, Jacques LaFont, was not invited to help with the course. He was a biology major specializing in birds. So..."

  He paused to let the point sink in.

  "The gay studies program is not an athletic program. Athletes have come to our counseling service, but so have many nonathletes. I am not connected with the college athletic program in any official way. Sure the college pays me for my teaching work. They pay all their professors. But they're paying me to teach, not to run. I'm sure you gentlemen wouldn't expect me to teach for free, after my father plowed about $40,000 into my education so that I could someday earn my own living."

  The committeemen sat stone silent, Aldo said later, looking fixedly at Billy as he stood there making his sexual avowal, talking about being gay as casually as if he were talking about the weather.

  "My salary as an untenured professor at Prescott is $10,000 a year," said Billy. He had a sheaf of mimeographs and handed them to the nearest commit­tee man, making a motion to indicate that they should be distributed around the table. "I have listed all my expenses here for the single year I've been teaching. You can look at the trivia yourselves. All I'll say is that by the time I have paid my taxes and living ex­penses and all the expenses of being an amateur athlete, traveling to meets and stuff, right down to the last pair of shoes and $3.50 for my AAU card, I am about $535 into the hole."

  He paused and the room was silent. "You gentle­men have accused me of making unethical profits from my sport. So ... I want to know, what profits are you talking about?"

  They were all studying the sheets. The room was filled with the gentle sound of rustling.

  "Unlike many athletes in my country, I have never taken under-the-table payments or free equipment from manufacturers, because I knew damn well that somebody would use that against me before all this was over. The figures on this sheet are the stark truth about my financial situation. You can take them or leave them."

  He paused again, looking down for a few moments as if thinking, and then raised his head again. Aldo said later that everyone in the room was as if immo­bilized by the touch of those clear eyes of his.

  "Then there's your charge that I have used my running as a podium for gay politics. All I can say is, if I am on a podium, it is because people like you have put me there against my will."

  "Mr. Sive .. ." said the chairman.

  "I'm not finished." Billy's voice cut like a whip. "Let me finish, and then you can say whatever you want. Let's go clear back to when this all started, to when I was on the team at Oregon U. I never once, in all this time, stood up and said, Look, everybody, I'm a gay. Gus Lindquist found out about it and he kicked me off the team, and I didn't say a word. Then word got around to everybody in track, and behind my back they were saying, Hey, the kid's a queer, and I didn't say a word. Finally a reporter asks me, Oh, hey, Billy, are you really a homosexual, and I said I was, because he asked me a question and I believe in an­swering questions."

  His voice seared them like acid. It was shaking a little now.

  "Then all the uproar started, and not once did I say I was gay. People spat in my face and stabbed me in the back and reporters came around wanting to interview me. When the man I live with and I decided to, like, formalize our relationship, we didn't announce it to the press. It was everybody else who made the fuss. Every single step of the way, I've been on the defensive and saying as little as possible. It's every­body else who's having hysterics. All I want is to run and be left alone, and I'd be happy if the word gay weren't even mentioned. But as long as people like you keep fussing, then the issue is going to be there. Besides, if you think running can be a podium, then you must not know much about athletics. Being on a podium takes a lot of energy. Running the way I do takes a lot of energy. You can't do both, it's impos­sible, you'd go insane."

  He stopped, breathing a little more quickly. Then he shrugged a little and said softly, "If you want me off that podium, then you take me off it yourselves. The burden of this whole thing is yours, not mine."

  He turned away, and sat down by Aldo Franconi.

  "Gentlemen..."

  It was Armas' voice. Armas stood up.

  The head of the committee, Feit Oster of Germany, said, "Mr. Sepponan, this is not your affair."

  "It is very much my affair, yes," said Armas. "I think that you will listen to me. If you do not listen here, then you will be reading my words in the papers." His voice was even, but the threat was there.

  They listened. Armas said what he had to say. Subtle looks of consternation went around the table. When he had finished, Armas said, "Billy and I will await your decision. We are hoping that you are not forcing us to be so . . . how you say ... so dramatic."

  He and Billy walked out of the room together.

  We had dinner with Sepponan, and then he caught his plane back to Helsinki. "I think I am seeing you in Montreal," he said to us, smiling his small, northern smile.

  Two days later, the IOC eligibility committee an­nounced mildly that it was satisfied with Billy's ex­planation about his job, and cleared him for Montreal.

  We were all a little limp.

  All but Billy. He was peaking, and he was breath­ing fire. He could hardly wait to get to Montreal. He wanted to burn up the whole world.

  17

  The huge stadium was packed with its 70,000 crowd. The place was overflowing with flags and band music and tension. Scattered clouds blew over—the place darkened and brightened as the sun came and went. It was windy—the flags unfurled smartly.

  It was the opening ceremonies of the Games.

  The whole group of us were in our seats down close to the track, opposite the stretch of straight that led to the finish line. John Sive, Delphine, Vince, Steve and the Angel, Betsy Heden, the Prescotts, a number of gay activists and celebrities. The only one missing was Jacques—he was off in the field immersed in research, but he had sent Billy a good-luck telegram.

  Everyone in the group was excited at all the color except me—I had been to the Games before. But I had to admit that the Canadians were putting on the mos
t magnificent show ever.

  All that British love of pageantry was pouring onto the track. Mounties in scarlet, regiments of kilted Scots, the Parliament Guards from Ottawa in their bearskin hats. Then all the minorities of Canada were march­ing past: Indians and Eskimos, French Canadians, Germans, Ukrainians, all in costume.

  I sat there bemused, exhausted from the weeks of struggle shaky with nervous exhilaration. The band music and the skirl of bagpipes dizzied me.

  Only one lone marcher was going to mean anything to me. And soon he came.

  The teams started pouring onto the track. Each with its flagbearer in the lead. In my old age, I had come to disapprove of the Games as a vehicle of senseless nationalistic politics. And yet, when the American team stepped onto the track, and I caught the first glimpse of the Stars and Stripes waving over the massed heads of the athletes, I got an incredible case of the chills.

  I clutched John's arm. "There they are," I said.

  Slowly" the U.S. team came striding—the team that so nearly was torn to pieces by Billy's persecution. They marched in two solid blocks—the 226 men and the 83 women. They were all in their smart red blazers, the men in white trousers and the women in white skirts. The men wore blue ties and the women had blue silk scarves fluttering at their necks.

  In front of them, alone, walked Billy. He was proud, graceful, almost military, bearing the heavy flag slant­ing a little against the breeze. His glasses glinted in the sunlight and his curls ruffled. He had a happy grin on his face.

  As he paced slowly down the center of the red tartan track, the sections of crowd opposite him burst into cheers and warm applause. The applause followed him along like a slow wave.

  Few athletes had ever come to the Games trailing as much publicity as Billy had. His fight to get there had finally turned much of the hostility to warmth or at least well-wishing. Most people in the stadium now seemed to feel, "All right, he's here, let's be kind to the Animal and see how he runs."

  He was opposite us now. He knew our seats were up there somewhere, and he dared to loose one hand from the flagstaff and toss a little wave at us. I threw one arm around John and the other around Vince and hugged them both hard. I had a lump in my throat. John had tears running down his cheeks. Vince was nodding a little, grinning sadly at his own bad luck.

  "Look at him," I said. "He would have made a damn fine Marine."

  Delphine was sobbing joyously. "He's so fresh," he kept saying.

  Steve had his arm around the Angel, who seemed to recognize his gentle acquaintance down there and was smiling a little, his blond mane blowing back against the knees of a stout middle-aged lady. Betsy was bouncing up and down in her seat, clutching Vince's arm. The Prescotts, sitting in front of us, turned around with huge grins. Joe slapped me happily on the knee, and Marian squeezed my hand.

  "We made it," said Joe. "It just hits me now."

  The loudest applause for Billy was from the gays scattered through the stadium. Hundreds had come from the States, scraping together money for tickets and camping in the city parks. The richer gays had flocked to the Cartier Hotel, where John and Steve were staying. They had come from all the Canadian cities. They had even come flocking from Europe. Two rows in front of us, we could see a couple of handsome young Canadian gays in faded levis, yelling Billy's name and hugging each other.

  The American team was past now. All we could see was Billy's mop of curls above the others' heads, and the flag snapping. They neared the reviewing stand, and there was the usual moment of suspense. Would the flag dip, or wouldn't it? All the other flags were dipping, one by one, as they passed the Prime Minister of Canada.

  Old Glory was coming up to the reviewing stand now.

  I leaned over to John and Vince. "He's not going to dip it," I said, and I told them Billy's joke about the flag as a symbol of gay erection. John and Vince broke into helpless laughter.

  That flag passed proudly by the reviewing stand, straight up. American arrogance and honor had been upheld once again, by a youth that America had dis­dained. I was laughing myself. That lump just stayed in my throat, and wouldn't go away.

  But the tension in the stadium was real and gripping, and we could feel it that very first afternoon. Every person who was at the Games remembers it as the Games of rumors and threatened violence. The rumors kept coming and going like the sunlight on that first day.

  The ghosts of Munich and Mexico marched in that opening parade, carrying their black flags. So many extremist groups had threatened to bomb the Montreal Games that everyone there sort of assumed that there'd be some kind of massacre. Everyone hoped that the bullets wouldn't fly while they were watching their favorite event. It was a sad proof of how accus­tomed we all were to violence.

  Rumors said that the French-Canadian separatists were going to bomb the Games. Black protestors were going to bomb the Games. The Canadian Indians and Eskimos were going to bomb the Games to protest ra­cial discrimination. Jewish radicals were going to bomb the Games to avenge the massacre in Munich. A few telephoned threats to the Olympic officials had even in­formed them that the Games would be bombed if they permitted Billy Sive to compete.

  So the Canadian government had reacted by throw­ing a massive cordon of troops around the Olympic area.

  When we had arrived at the stadium that first day, we had been amazed at the elaborate security precau­tions. Every single ticket-holder had to walk past one of those metal-detectors used in airports. If he showed metal, he was frisked. The Olympic Village, where the 1,700 athletes spent all their time save for those mo­ments when they appeared on the field, was under such tight guard that athletes could not sneak in girlfriends and wives as they had done even at Munich. The ath­letes could leave the village to visit downtown Mon­treal, but they were warned that they did so at their own risk.

  The threats against Billy had upset us all. But the Canadian government assured us that they were taking every precaution. They were treating Billy with great courtesy, no doubt hoping to pick up a few points with their own gay population.

  Billy was staying with Mike, Martinson and Sachs in an apartment on the second floor of the U.S. dormi­tory in the athletes' village. The apartment was under guard at all times, even when the boys were out. In addition, the Canadians had provided two big armed bodyguards who went with Billy everywhere, and one who went with me. The bodyguards could be trusted to do their duty fervently—they were gay.

  Now and then I had nightmare thoughts about Billy being blown up by a bomb, but I tried to relax. You're really getting paranoid, I told myself.

  The clank of troops had put a damper on the Games. I could feel it right there in the stadium. The crowd was trying desperately to have a good time, but all around I could hear people talking about their adven­tures at the frisking point.

  "What's the point of having the Games," Mike Stella had told me the night before, "if they can't be open and carefree?"

  Everyone—spectators, the press, athletes—kept looking around hungrily for something to give warmth and positive focus to the whole chilly affair. And that something was turning out to be Billy.

  He had walked into the athletes' village with his sunlit smile, his mop of curls, his glasses, his brown suede jacket and his spikes slung over his shoulder, and he had said "Hi" to everybody. In about twenty-four hours, his Pied Piper charm had disarmed most of the athletes. They were all young too—sixteen to thirty-five. Many were nonconformists in their own right, and they responded to Billy as someone whose struggle and hard work they could appreciate.

  They talked to him and found that the notorious, young, bearded gay was just a human being like them­selves. They found that while he'd discuss homosexual­ity if they pressed him, he really preferred to talk about sport, chess, yoga, rock music, politics, the weather, life and other things. Suddenly the little group of de­voted friends around him had swollen to hundreds, of both sexes.

  The media were already getting bored with all the rumors of bombings, and
they sought out Billy for a little bright copy. The athletes' and the media's warm feelings spread to the spectators. Shortly he was the most popular, most talked-about athlete at the Games.

  As I watched it happening, it seemed like a miracle to me. After all the brutality we'd been through, it seemed like everyone's hearts were suddenly being touched with grace.

  Billy went wild in the Olympic village, and I let him. He was living as he'd always dreamed of doing.

  He had overcome the fury by nonviolence and com­passion. He was out front, running free. He was ac­cepted for what he was. He was even valued now, as someone who might speak for a whole universe of hu­man feeling that had been denied. It was so ironic that, after all the efforts to keep him away from the Games, he should become their central figure.

  He was everywhere at once. He was playing chess with Armas Sepponan. He was in the Village record shop buying records. He was in the shoe shops trying on new track shoes (and refusing gift pairs). He was walking through the village holding hands with the black African runners (who hold hands with every­body because that's their custom). He was working out on the track with athlete friends jokingly yelling "Go Beelee" from the sidelines. He was holed up in the dorm having serious human discussions with people.

  He spent a lot of time in the discotheque, and danced so much that Gus Lindquist complained. The British and European girl athletes were crazy about him, and fought to dance with him. It was that phenomenon of the straight female finding the unavailable macho gay so irresistible.

  British girl miler Rita Hedley told the press that she was hopelessly in love with him. "He's the sexiest man I've ever met," she said, "and the closest I can get is dancing."

  Billy was very nice to Rita, very gentle, and danced with her to her heart's content. One evening when I was able to visit the Village, I got to see them.