The Front Runner Read Free

and sign burners like you guys, because you all want to run for Oregon. We think more in terms of fitness and having a good time. We go to the local meets, and we do very well, and that's about it."
    "What you're saying is," said Vince, "if you take us, it'll be a whole new ball game here."
    "It will be," I said. "But it's no problem ... we have the facilities, and the money, as you can see. We don't have an indoor track, but we're breaking ground for one this spring. And we're also going to install a Tartan track." The old-time cinder tracks are not as fast as the new synthetic tracks.
    All three were looking hungrily at the track. Probably they hadn't had a good workout for several days, and they were feeling withdrawal symptoms. Vince had his arm over Jacques' shoulders. They were being quite natural around me—what could Billy's father have told them?
    Billy couldn't stand it. He took off and ran gently around the track alone. He passed the chugging snow-plow in the turn. He passed among the girl runners like a thoroughbred among a lot of ponies. He loped easily along, with perfect form. I noticed some of the girls turn to look at him, but he ignored them.
    Perhaps it was the sight of his lonely, graceful figure among the girls, against the snowy landscape, that decided me. They were like three young birds driven
    away from the flock. Four years ago, Joe Prescott had sheltered me, an older storm-driven bird. It would be a sin not to pass on his Christian kindness.
    Billy 'rounded the turn and came back to us, breathing easily, grinning.
    "Ready to go, huh?" I said, smiling myself for the first time.
    "Yeah," he said.
    "All right, you're on," I said. "Go register, and get your rooms assigned. You'll probably lose a semester's credit, but we can work something out. Then report back to me, and I'll issue you your gear."
    They all grinned happily, and Vince slapped Billy gently on the back.
    "We really appreciate it, Harlan," said Billy.
    "It's Mr. Brown," I said.
    Their faces fell a little. Billy looked at me strangely.
    "Okay, Mr. Brown," he said.
    TWO
    ALL my life, I have been haunted by the ghost of a runner.
    I was born in Philadelphia on August 14, 1935. My father was a track nut, and among my earliest memories is being taken to meets. He'd hold me up so I could see over the crowd at the distant, flitting figures of men in shorts and singlets. "Look there," he'd say, "look how fine they are, my boy."
    My father, Michael Brown, was a big, strapping man, half-English, half-Scot, who owned a small printing plant there in Philadelphia. From 1941 to 1945 he was off in the Pacific fighting with the Marines. He helped take Guadalcanal, and he came home with a slight limp and a Purple Heart.
    He was a strict man, but also warm and merry, and I adored him. My mother was less close to me—she was a devoted, dutiful Black Irish woman, but a little cold and always nervous. He and my mother were both staunch Protestants, and they gave me the upbringing that one would expect. No smoking, no drinking, no dancing, church every Sunday, pledge allegiance to the flag.
    And running. For my father, running was almost part of his religion. "Runners," he used to say to me, "those are the real men. Baseball is for babies, and football is a brainless business. Running takes more effort and more discipline than any other sport."
    Ironically, then, it was my fine, big, straight father who taught me to worship at the altar of manhood. Whereas if stereotype had its way, I should have had a milquetoast father, a fierce and castrating mother, and grown up disturbed and shy with girls. That was not the case at all. My father, at odd variance with his puritan-
    ism in other areas, had no objection to girls. He said it was part of being a real man. Already in grade school, I discovered that the sexual part of my nature was powerful and insistent.
    When I got to the Fairview High School, the main thing on my mind was getting onto its famous track team.