Free The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren

"At any rate, from now on, we have to think of every contingency. We have to figure out every strategy that they'll try beforehand, and block it if we can. Because at least one of you is going to Montreal, probably, and I wouldn't want you knocked off the Olympic team just because we messed up our tactics. Some people in track, and some people in the country as a whole, will be very unhappy if any of you represent the U.S. They're going to take it as an insult to our national masculinity. I have a feeling that these people won't stop at anything to keep you kids from setting foot on the Montreal track."
    Their eyes were fixed on mine, full of naked seriousness.
    "We don't know anything much about track politics," said Billy. "We'll mess up for sure."
    "You leave the politics to me," I said. I smiled a little. "That's what I'm for. All you have to worry about is running. And when I figure out the politics, you do what I suggest. That's all."
    "We may have to go to court before it's over," said Billy.
    "We might," I said. "Your father may have to help us out."
    "Shit," said Vince, "I'd love to see the AAU in court."
    "It won't be fun," I said. "Before this whole thing is over, we may have moments when we wish we'd never been born."
    "But it's worth doing," said Billy, softly.
    "Yes," I said, "it is."
    When they got up to leave, I pointed at the messy kitchen and said, "One of you stay for KP." I hoped Billy would volunteer. To my delight, he did.
    In another minute we were alone, busily cleaning up the piles of carrot peelings and nutshells and washing teacups. I was feeling benevolent and able to control
    my feelings. And I was hungry to know more about him. So I said, "Tell me about your father."
    "He's, coming to visit me at Christmas," said Billy, "so you'll meet him. My dad is a great guy."
    I was washing the teacups in the old-fashioned enamel sink, and Billy was drying them with one of my scroungy dishtowels.
    "So your father is gay."
    "My mother left him when I was about nine months old. She abandoned me. He married a gay after that, and the two of them raised me."
    "How did your father manage to hold onto his law career and live openly with a gay?" I asked.
    "Well," said Billy, "my father goes for TV's. None of my father's business colleagues ever suspected Frances was a male. He looked like a very slender Marilyn Monroe. He had beautiful silver-blonde hair. My father would entertain, and Frances would float around, saying, 'Another cocktail, darling?' Visually, he was incredible."
    "A hermaphrodite?" I asked.
    Billy shook his head. "No, he had male organs. I know, because I stumbled in on him once when he was in the bathroom. He was very modest 'and he screamed. After that I took it for granted that everybody's mother had a cock." He laughed a little, very busy with the teacups. "You can imagine what a shock I got when I found out the truth. I was in seventh grade, and one day the kids were handing around some dirty pictures. I saw a cunt for the first time. It was all red and wet, like a wound."
    He was putting the cups carefully back in the cupboard. "To me, the real trauma was learning about the heterosexual world. Know what I mean?"
    "So you're the second generation of the nation of gays," I said softly.
    "But Frances and my father broke up when I was twelve," said Billy sadly. "After that, he's had a whole raft of lovers, but nothing permanent."
    "So you grew up knowing everything?"
    "Shit," said Billy, "I was into junior high before it really sank into my head that I lived in a different
    world than the other kids. I mean, I grew up in the gay ghetto in San Francisco. It was all I knew."
    As a veteran of secretiveness and agonizing, I was fascinated by the kid's openness and directness. I was shortly to learn that Billy didn't volunteer personal information unasked. But if you asked him something straight out, he would give you the cold answer, without dramatics and without hesitation, no matter how personal it