Harlan's Race Read Free

hand. In the stands by the final turn, the crowd was suddenly screaming and stirring, as if something had just happened over there.
    Then the announcer’s voice was echoing through the vast stadium.
    “— THE GUNMAN IS IN CUSTODY. HE HAS BEEN DISARMED. WE REPEAT. REMAIN CALM ... STAY SEATED.”
    The paramedics were loading the gurney into the ambulance. Legally, they had to do their drill — get Billy to an emergency room. But I knew it was too late. As a Marine, I’d been too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam. But I’d heard the old guys talk about wounds. Nobody can live with half their brain shot away.
    “Let’s go,” my bodyguard said quietly.
    He hurried Vince and me off the track. As my assistant and I jogged along, Vince was clutching Billy’s spiked shoe against his chest, and tears streamed down his face. He had a tender, young heart, and Billy was his best friend. Mine was the steel heart — it took a while to melt down.
    “Unscrew those spikes,” I said. “They’ll hurt you.”
    Vince fumbled in his pocket for the little spike screw. He got the spikes out, dropped one, picked it up, and fumbled them into his pocket.
    Up there in the stands, the rest of our family were either sitting frozen, or trying to fight through the crowd. Billy’s father, John Sive. Betsy Heden, the young lesbian who was Billy’s best woman friend. Joe and Marian Prescott, founders of the college that supported Billy’s Olympic bid. And writer Steve Goodnight and his lover, Angel. Three more bodyguards were with them.
    Outside the stadium, those ambulance sounds were fading away.
    At the crowded stadium gate, I saw Marian and Betsy with Harry’s bodyguard partner, Chino Cabrera. The two women threw their arms around me and Vince, while Chino gave Harry a quick report. The rest of the family were hurrying to a rendezvous point outside.
    “Harlan, aren’t you going with Billy?” Marian panted.
    Then she and Betsy saw the red mess on my clothes.
    “Dear ... heaven ..Marian murmured, hands over her eyes.
    She threw her arms around Betsy, who simply uttered Billy’s name drawn out to a terrible wordless shriek.
    The panicky crowd had us trapped near the stadium entrance. Chino and Harry had planted themselves in front of us. Then camera flashes started blinking off in our faces. Images of our bloodstained little clan would be flashed around the world — by those media who had stalked Billy and me since our relationship was publicized in a tabloid newspaper last spring. An ABC-TV female interviewer pushed briskly toward us, with her mike. A cameraman followed, equipment on his shoulder.
    Marian was our media liaison. She moved up beside Chino, and barked, “Be a little kind. Statements later.”
    “Mr. Brown,” the interviewer called to me. “Mr. Brown, would you — Mr. Brown, as Billy Sive’s coach, can you tell us how you felt when —”
    Now spectators yelled down on our heads, from the tiers above.
    “Billy lives!”
    “Serves him right!”
    And a loud woman’s voice trumpeted, “Homos deserve to die! I hope they shoot you aaaaallll!”
    Late that night, in our downtown hotel, the family managed to shut the world out. Everybody sprawled exhausted in beds or on chairs, or bathed swollen eyes in the bathrooms. Footsteps and voices shook the corridor outside, where Harry’s voice could be heard barking, “Keep the bribe, buddy. Press conference in the lobby tomorrow morning at 8.”
    So Harry and Chino were returning from the stadium. I wondered what they’d found out.
    I was standing at the window, staring out at the glowing skyline of that French-Canadian city. Church spires cut across the city lights. Somewhere, a church bell was tolling midnight.
    The bedroom had sheltered Billy and me, on the two nights he left the Olympic Village. It was stuffy, as hotel rooms were in those days when everybody still smoked so much. On the dresser, beside my old Bible, lay the gold medal that he’d won in the