The Last Lovers on Earth: Stories from Dark Times

by Charles Ortleb

  In every editorial conference at every newspaper across the country, the same question was being asked: How was it possible that so many amazing medical approaches to AIDS had been tried without having any effect on these two gay gentlemen? A real opportunity was at hand; there was a great deal scientists could learn by studying this unusual gay couple. They were as valuable as the last two pandas on earth. Perhaps these two men should be urged to be volunteers for one final AIDS study that might help the government understand the true nature of gay men once and for all. After all, every other member of their community had been enthusiastic team players in signing up for nearly every government protocol that had been offered to them.

  When the Director of the National Institutes of Health was informed that two gay men were alive despite all of the billions of dollars that the N.I.H. itself had devoted to AIDS, he asked the President to make an exception and have the Secret Service assigned to protect these two medical anomalies. He was a worldly man and he knew that there were millions of homophobes all over the world who, as a result of the success of the AIDS research effort, had given up hope of ever having a homosexual to attack. These two gay men would be in demand everywhere there were homophobes. They had to be kept safe and alive if scientists were to achieve a final understanding of the AIDS epidemic. What had the best minds in science done wrong? The fact that these two gay men were still kicking gnawed at the conscience of every scientist at the Bethesda campus of the N.I.H.

  Since all the gay men in every other country were dead, it didn’t make America’s AIDS researchers look too good; they always put on airs that they were the best in the business. The heads of health departments all over the globe were calling Washington and demanding an explanation. Had the arrogant, dishonest American scientists fucked up again? Everyone in the AIDS Division of the Pasteur Institute in Paris could barely keep from gloating. It was yet another reason that the entire international AIDS research effort should have been kept in French hands. There were no gay Pierres or Michels living in Paris anymore. The French AIDS research effort had been completely successful, thank you very much. The Americans could just kiss their dreams of a Nobel Prize for the eradication of AIDS goodbye.

  When Seth got home, Kyle was ashen with terror.

  "Why did you have to tell Enola that we were the last two gay men alive on earth?"

  "I told her to keep it to herself. What a bitch!"

  "Well, I hope you’re ready to go on the Larry King Show."

  "What?"

  "They just called. They played hardball. They said that if we did any other media before them, they would never have us on. And they warned us that they were the only show that wouldn’t give us a hard time."

  "I can’t go on Larry King. I just got a zit on my nose."

  "They’re sending a limo in an hour. I don’t think we have any choice. I don’t want to be grilled mercilessly by Barbara Walters."

  "What do they expect us to say?"

  ‘They want to know why we’re gay and not dead."

  "I’m just gonna sit there and smile. You’d better do all of the talking. You’re the reason we’re still here."

  No one was more shocked than the editor of the New York Times. The whole building on West 43rd Street was in disarray. It was as if a car bomb had hit the place. Just the week before, the Times had done a five-part wrap-up series on the epidemic with the headline "All Homosexuals Dead, But AIDS Researchers Still Cautiously Optimistic." It had been an expensive and historic series to pull off; no one at the Old Gray Lady looked forward to retracting this one. They couldn’t just run a little correction. How had they gotten the story so wrong when they had enlisted practically every reporter in the building to scout the entire globe to make sure that every gay man was indeed dead after such a prodigious government research effort? Had the Times once again failed to uncover a major government scandal? How had they not known that there were still two gay men carrying on, practically under the Times’s nose, in Cape May, New Jersey? Why hadn’t anyone on the team of investigative reporters thought to call the Cape May Health Department to see if there were any gay men still alive in that town? This was no minor oversight. Heads of reporters were going to roll down Broadway. This would be the biggest media brouhaha since CNN’s Vietnam sarin mess.

  Religious groups that had breathed a sigh of relief when they thought that the AIDS epidemic was over immediately began to plan mailings warning that Seth and Kyle could be responsible for recruiting a new gay population if something was not done to counter the threat.

  The staff of the Larry King Show was ecstatic about their coup, but Larry wanted balance and it looked like they wouldn't be able to get it. They desperately tried to contact the leading AIDS researchers to come on with the gay couple, but the scientists were so mortified that they didn’t even answer their phones.

  The Centers for Disease Control convened an emergency meeting of its elite Rapid Response Epidemiologic Service, which had successfully concocted the whole paradigm which the nation had come to know as AIDS. The Epidemiologic Service of course wanted to pass the buck. They insisted that it was the fault of the CDC’s AIDS Prevention Department. If that department had done what it was supposed to do—namely, convince every gay man to take all kinds of AIDS drugs prophylactically, just in case they got AIDS—this crisis would never have materialized. How could anybody in Prevention call himself a professional? Nobody looked good in Atlanta. There was AIDS egg on the face of everyone at the CDC. Some doctors around the country talked openly of charging the entire organization with medical malpractice.

  The Prevention Department was dumbfounded. Every time that there had been an announcement of a major breakthrough in AIDS therapy, several hundred thousand gay people had taken advantage of the new opportunities. And there had been so many of these remarkable medical breakthroughs that it was inconceivable to the Prevention Dept. that any gay men could still be standing. How could it be that Kyle and Seth were walking around without the famous buffalo humps, which had been the fringe benefit of protease inhibitors? Why hadn’t they developed the chicken feet, ostrich plumes, and lion manes that were the side effects of the subsequent generations of breakthrough AIDS pharmaceuticals? Clearly the marketing departments of the leading AIDS pharmaceutical companies had fallen down on the job. Someone had seriously failed in the area of AIDS communications.

  "It’s the Vaccine Education Department!" said one nervous high-level CDC official to the angry director.

  "You mean these two gays never took the vaccine?" responded the director.

  "No, sir."

  "What’s the matter with them? Don’t they own a television set?"

  That two gay men had actually survived the massive Manhattan AIDS Project, the most ambitious biomedical enterprise in history, led the news hours all over the world that night. Some stations interrupted their regular program to break the story about Kyle and Seth. People in many countries had forgotten what a gay man looked like, so ambitious photographers from dozens of countries were booking flights to the small airport in Cape May. Many media outlets had to scurry to find experts on homosexuality to go on the air to give the public adequate background for the unfolding story.

  It was only a few hours after the call from the local station when, Kyle and Seth’s street suddenly started to fill up with camera crews and curious neighbors.

  When Kyle looked out the window, he yelled at Seth, "See what you’ve done for us? There goes our peaceful little life in Cape May!"

  "Well, it’s your fault. You told me not to believe a word that the government said about AIDS."

  "For God’s sake, you’d be dead if you had, silly."

  "Kyle, I don’t want to be an international celebrity. I just want to go to the A&P. We’re out of coffee."

  They embraced anxiously and tried to collect themselves. When the limousine from Larry King arrived and they emerged out their front door, some neighbors actually applauded, but there were some who took the opport
unity to dust off some vintage homophobic epithets.

  "Go back to Israel, you gay Jews!" one rather confused and angry person in the crowd shouted at them.

  "We’re not even Jewish!" screamed Kyle as they darted into the waiting limousine.

  Helicopters with cameramen leaning out of them could soon be seen and heard buzzing loudly overhead. The limo’s progress was followed all the way to D.C. It was turning into a media event not seen since the O.J. Bronco chase or the Cunanan hunt back in the 90s. All three network anchors of the news were called in early to cover the story. Swat teams of reporters had located Seth and Kyle’s parents and were now beginning vigils outside of their parents’ homes. Never had two gay men caused so much commotion merely by not being dead.

  The President of the United States was interrupted in the middle of a National Security Council meeting and informed that the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and The Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms had all confirmed that the news reports were accurate. It defied logic, but yes, two gay men were still alive. And even more surprisingly, one of the wire services was reporting that they were as healthy as football players.

  The President turned red and started pounding the table. "Get me the CDC on the phone in the Oval Office," he shouted at his secretary. He promptly ended the meeting and rushed out of the room.

  The director of the Centers for Disease Control was nervously waiting on the other end of the phone when the President took his place behind his desk. The President took a deep breath.

  The director immediately started to pass the buck. He tried to blame the Secretary of Education. The two undead gay men had not received sufficient AIDS awareness education. And it was Hollywood’s fault for not doing enough AIDS-awareness movies. In addition, it was decadent Broadway’s fault for never having enough red ribbons on the Tony Award shows.

  The President was not having any, and he proceeded to lose it on the phone. He ordered the CDC to determine immediately what was wrong with their AIDS program. He demanded a report on his desk in two weeks. How did they know there weren’t other gays all over the country who hadn’t been beneficiaries of the government’s generous AIDS treatment and vaccine program? Privately, the President was thinking that this was the kind of thing that always happened when you let the government bureaucracy run things. He had always told his staff that they would have been better off privatizing the whole damn AIDS crisis.

  As the limo sped with its precious cargo to Washington, the major networks recorded the entire journey from the air. They did a split screen showing Republican leaders rushing to the floor of Congress to denounce the resurgence of a powerful homosexual lobby in the Nation’s Capital, even though Kyle and Seth had never been there before. They blamed the democrats for an incompetent AIDS program. Fundraisers in Christian right-wing offices watched the limo with the gay couple on television and began composing letters in their heads that warned of the threat of a new homosexual agenda in Washington.

  There was a television set in the speeding limousine and Kyle and Seth watched their own journey in horror. Kyle took advantage of the car’s wet bar to make the two of them a stiff drink.

  "This is so surreal," he said to Seth.

  "It’s like the first days of the epidemic."

  As Seth sipped his drink and stared out at the passing scenery, his eyes teared up and he got lost in memories of the preceding twenty-five years. He remembered the two of them being paralyzed by the news every night as the death toll kept climbing and climbing while the government declared one major victory after another against AIDS. Every time there was some new development in AIDS therapy, it seemed to Kyle and Seth that another herd of gay people disappeared. All of their friends had become alienated from them. No one understood why they didn’t show up at AIDS benefits. At gay parties in Cape May, whenever Kyle said that they didn’t believe what the government or Gay Men’s Health Crisis were saying about the epidemic, they were told that they were paranoid or in deep denial. They were not criticized in this manner anymore because, as a result of the program that all their gay friends supported, all of their gay friends were now dead. They had all wanted the government to take extraordinary measures to end the epidemic. And it had.

  When they arrived at the CNN building, the limo pulled into an underground garage to avoid the crowds of cameras outside. Seth wanted Kyle to beg the driver to take them back to Cape May immediately.

  They were greeted as soon as they got out of their car by one of the Larry King Show’s producers. She told them that the whole world was waiting to see them, that virtually every news show in the world had called in and asked for a live feed from the broadcast. Larry King himself was so excited that his cardiologist was called in to sit on the set during the interview. The producer told them not to worry, that Larry never hurt anybody’s feelings during interviews. He would treat them just like they were family. He would ask a couple of phony hardball questions and that would be it. She also said that they wouldn’t let any nasty calls get through. She said she realized how rough it was for them.

  "We want to protect you," she said. "You two are like an endangered species."

  "Like?" said Seth. "We are an endangered species."

  After spending two hours in a plush refreshment suite at the studio, they were taken into the Green Room on the King set. They were told that they would not meet Larry until they were on the show because he liked things to seem spontaneous and unrehearsed.

  Larry King started the show by apologizing for bumping the Publishers Clearing House winner who was supposed to be on that night.

  "I know the whole world is talking about this story," he said. "Tonight we have the exclusive. Even though the United States spent a quarter of a century and an unprecedented amount of money on AIDS research, treatment, and prevention, there are still two gay men alive. It’s almost unbelievable, but we have them here on the show for you tonight.

  Larry handled the frightened last gay couple on earth with kid gloves. They both warmed up to him right away. He acted fatherly in his concern about their sudden international notoriety.

  "You both know that you’ve caused quite a stir all over the world, don’t you?"

  "Yes, Mr. King," responded Kyle.

  "Call me Larry, please."

  "Yes, Larry. All hell has broken loose."

  "What’s it like being the last gay couple on earth? It must feel like quite a responsibility."

  "Nobody knew it till one of our friends was indiscreet. But now the whole world knows. I guess we have to try and do a good job representing the gay community," responded Kyle.

  "Especially since I guess we are the gay community," added Seth.

  "We understand the White House has issued a statement assuring the American public that it is re-examining its whole AIDS program in light of this development," said King. "They’re baffled over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They just can’t understand how after spending over two trillion dollars on the AIDS problem, the two of you could possibly be sitting here chatting with me tonight."

  "Well, here we are, Larry," said Seth nervously.

  "So the two of you just never got with the AIDS program. You know I was kind of surprised not to see you both wearing red ribbons. I remember in the old days of the AIDS epidemic, you just never saw a gay without a red ribbon."

  "We never wore red ribbons, Larry," said Kyle.

  "That’s interesting. How many AIDS candlelight vigils did you two attend?"

  "None, Larry."

  "And how many dead bodies of people who died of AIDS did you throw over the fence onto the White House lawn in demands for more money to be spent on the AIDS Manhattan Project?"

  "None, Larry, none."

  "You know, I’ll be criticized by everyone in the media if I don’t ask this, and I hope you take it the right way. Are you two sure you are gay?"

  "Of course, Larry," asserted Kyle.

  "I mean you have to admit that in half a day you
not only have attracted the attention of the whole world, but you’ve shaken our faith in the American scientific establishment. You understand why I have to ask these tough questions."

  During the call-in segment of the show there were all kinds of curious questions. Some people wanted to know whether a single gay couple actually constitutes a legitimate minority group. Another wanted to know whether Seth and Kyle qualified for the benefits of the Americans with Disabilities Act. One woman who described herself as a lonely fag hag asked if she could adopt the couple. Kyle told the woman that they had enough women friends, including one with a big mouth.

  The most dramatic call was from the head of the Secret Service who called Larry to say that the President had authorized around-the-clock protection for Seth and Kyle, because they were now extremely important to the public health of America and until all the leading AIDS researchers understood fully why Kyle and Seth were still alive, the AIDS Manhattan Project could not be considered a complete success.

  Larry sat up in his chair and said, "What do you think of that, Kyle? Complete protection from the Secret Service, just like the President."

  "Well, that’s good, I guess," he said with a gulp.

  Larry closed the evening by thanking the couple for sharing their amazing story with the American people. He said that he would love to have them back on the show periodically for as long as they were still alive.

  Because Kyle and Seth were so important to the security of the country, the Secret Service never let them return to their home in Cape May. Instead, they were flown to a retired C.I.A. safe house enclave in Palm Beach, Florida. Needless to say, the Service knows that we are a country of crazies, and as soon as anyone hears that there are only two of anything left in existence, there are always a few Americans who feel a deep need to shoot them.