EMMA: You’re the writer fellow who’s scared. I’m scared, too. I hear you’ve got a big mouth.
NED: Is big mouth a symptom?
EMMA: No, a cure. Come on in and take your clothes off.
(Lights up on an examining table, center stage. NED starts to undress.)
NED: Dr. Brookner, what’s happening?
EMMA: I don’t know.
NED: In just a couple of minutes you told two people I know something. The article said there isn’t any cure.
EMMA: Not even any good clues yet. And even if they found out tomorrow what’s happening, it takes years to find out how to cure and prevent anything. All I know is this disease is the most insidious killer I’ve ever seen or studied or heard about. And I think we’re seeing only the tip of the iceberg. And I’m afraid it’s on the rampage. I’m frightened nobody important is going to give a damn because it seems to be happening mostly to gay men. Who cares if a faggot dies? Does it occur to you to do anything about it. Personally?
NED: Me?
EMMA: Somebody’s got to do something.
NED: Wouldn’t it be better coming from you?
EMMA: Doctors are extremely conservative; they try to stay out of anything that smells political, and this smells. Bad. As soon as you start screaming you get treated like a nut case. Maybe you know that. And then you’re ostracized and rendered worthless, just when you need cooperation most. Take off your socks.
(NED, in his undershorts, is now sitting on the examining table. EMMA will now examine him, his skin particularly, starting with the bottom of his feet, feeling his lymph glands, looking at his scalp, into his mouth. . .)
NED: Nobody listens for very long anyway. There’s a new disease of the month every day.
EMMA: This hospital sent its report of our first cases to the medical journals over a year ago. The New England Journal of Medicine has finally published it, and last week, which brought you running, the Times ran something on some inside page. Very inside: page twenty. If you remember, Legionnaires’ Disease, toxic-shock, they both hit the front page of the Times the minute they happened. And stayed there until somebody did something. The front page of the Times has a way of inspiring action. Lie down.
NED: They won’t even use the word “gay” unless it’s in a direct quote. To them we’re still homosexuals. That’s like still calling blacks Negroes. The Times has always had trouble writing about anything gay.
EMMA: Then how is anyone going to know what’s happening? And what precautions to take? Someone’s going to have to tell the gay population fast.
NED: You’ve been living with this for over a year? Where’s the mayor? Where’s the Health Department?
EMMA: They know about it. You have a Commissioner of Health who got burned with the Swine Flu epidemic, declaring an emergency when there wasn’t one. The government appropriated $150 million for that mistake. You have a mayor who’s a bachelor and I assume afraid of being perceived as too friendly to anyone gay. And who is also out to protect a billion-dollar-a-year tourist industry. He’s not about to tell the world there’s an epidemic menacing his city. And don’t ask me about the President. Is the mayor gay?
NED: If he is, like J. Edgar Hoover, who would want him?
EMMA: Have you had any of the symptoms?
NED: I’ve had most of the sexually transmitted diseases the article said come first. A lot of us have. You don’t know what it’s been like since the sexual revolution hit this country. It’s been crazy, gay or straight.
EMMA: What makes you think I don’t know? Any fever, weight loss, night sweats, diarrhea, swollen glands, white patches in your mouth, loss of energy, shortness of breath, chronic cough?
NED: No. But those could happen with a lot of things, couldn’t they?
EMMA: And purple lesions. Sometimes. Which is what I’m looking for. It’s a cancer. There seems to be a strange reaction in the immune system. It’s collapsed. Won’t work. Won’t fight. Which is what it’s supposed to do. So most of the diseases my guys are coming down with—and there are some very strange ones—are caused by germs that wouldn’t hurt a baby, not a baby in New York City anyway. Unfortunately, the immune system is the system we know least about. So where is this big mouth I hear you’ve got?
NED: I have more of a bad temper than a big mouth.
EMMA: Nothing wrong with that. Plenty to get angry about. Health is a political issue. Everyone’s entitled to good medical care. If you’re not getting it, you’ve got to fight for it. Do you know this is the only country in the industrialized world besides South Africa that doesn’t guarantee health care for everyone? Open your mouth. Turn over. One of my staff told me you were well-known in the gay world and not afraid to say what you think. Is that true? I can’t find any gay leaders. I tried calling several gay organizations. No one ever calls me back. Is anyone out there?
NED: There aren’t any organizations strong enough to be useful, no. Dr. Brookner, nobody with a brain gets involved in gay politics. It’s filled with the great unwashed radicals of any counterculture. That’s why there aren’t any leaders the majority will follow. Anyway, you’re talking to the wrong person. What I think is politically incorrect.
EMMA: Why?
NED: Gay is good to that crowd, no matter what. There’s no room for criticism, looking at ourselves critically.
EMMA: What’s your main criticism?
NED: I hate how we play victim, when many of us, most of us, don’t have to.
EMMA: Then you’re exactly what’s needed now.
NED: Nobody ever listens. We’re not exactly a bunch that knows how to play follow the leader.
EMMA: Maybe they’re just waiting for somebody to lead them.
NED: We are. What group isn’t?
EMMA: You can get dressed. I can’t find what I’m looking for.
NED: (Jumping down and starting to dress.) Needed? Needed for what? What is it exactly you’re trying to get me to do?
EMMA: Tell gay men to stop having sex.
NED: What?
EMMA: Someone has to. Why not you?
NED: It is a preposterous request.
EMMA: It only sounds harsh. Wait a few more years, it won’t sound so harsh.
NED: Do you realize that you are talking about millions of men who have singled out promiscuity to be their principal political agenda, the one they’d die before abandoning. How do you deal with that?
EMMA: Tell them they may die.
NED: You tell them!
EMMA: Are you saying you guys can’t relate to each other in a nonsexual way?
NED: It’s more complicated than that. For a lot of guys it’s not easy to meet each other in any other way. It’s a way of connecting—which becomes an addiction. And then they’re caught in the web of peer pressure to perform and perform. Are you sure this is spread by having sex?
EMMA: Long before we isolated the hepatitis viruses we knew about the diseases they caused and had a good idea of how they got around. I think I’m right about this. I am seeing more cases each week than the week before. I figure that by the end of the year the number will be doubling every six months. That’s something over a thousand cases by next June. Half of them will be dead. Your two friends I’ve just diagnosed? One of them will be dead. Maybe both of them.
NED: And you want me to tell every gay man in New York to stop having sex?
EMMA: Who said anything about just New York?
NED: You want me to tell every gay man across the country—
EMMA: Across the world! That’s the only way this disease will stop spreading.
NED: Dr. Brookner, isn’t that just a tiny bit unrealistic?
EMMA: Mr. Weeks, if having sex can kill you, doesn’t anybody with half a brain stop fucking? But perhaps you’ve never lost anything. Good-bye.
BRUCE: (Calling from off.) Where do I go? Where do I go?
(BRUCE NILES, an exceptionally handsome man in his late thirties, rushes in carrying CRAIG, helped by MICKEY.)
EMMA: Quickly—put him on the table. What happened?
BRUCE: He was coming out of the building and he started running to me and then he . . . then he collapsed to the ground.
EMMA: What is going on inside your bodies!
(CRAIG starts to convulse. BRUCE, MICKEY, and NED restrain him.)
EMMA: Gently. Hold on to his chin.
(She takes a tongue depressor and holds CRAIG’s tongue flat; she checks the pulse in his neck; she looks into his eyes for vital signs that he is coming around; CRAIG’S convulsions stop.)
You the lover?
BRUCE: Yes.
EMMA: What’s your name?
BRUCE: Bruce Niles, ma’am.
EMMA: How’s your health?
BRUCE: Fine. Why—is it contagious?
EMMA: I think so.
MICKEY: Then why haven’t you come down with it?
EMMA: (Moving toward a telephone.) Because it seems to have a very long incubation period and require close intimacy. Niles? You were Reinhard Holz’s lover?
BRUCE: How did you know that? I haven’t seen him in a couple of years.
EMMA: (Dialing the hospital emergency number.) He died three weeks ago. Brookner. Emergency. Set up a room immediately.
(Hangs up.)
BRUCE: We were only boyfriends for a couple months.
MICKEY: It’s like some sort of plague.
EMMA: There’s always a plague. Of one kind or another. I’ve had it since I was a kid. Mr. Weeks, I don’t think your friend is going to live for very long.
Scene 2
FELIX TURNER’s desk at the New York Times, FELIX is always conservatively dressed, and is outgoing and completely masculine.
NED: (Entering, a bit uncomfortable and nervous.) Mr. Turner?
FELIX: Bad timing. (Looking up.) “Mister”?
NED: My name is Ned Weeks.
FELIX: You caught me at a rough moment. I have a deadline.
NED: I’ve been told you’re gay and might be able to help get vital information in the Times about—
FELIX: You’ve been told? Who told you?
NED: The grapevine.
FELIX: Here I thought everyone saw me as the Burt Reynolds of West Forty-third Street. Please don’t stop by and say hello to Mr. Sulzberger or Abe Rosenthal. What kind of vital information?
NED: You read the article about this new disease?
FELIX: Yes, I read it. I wondered how long before I’d hear from somebody. Why does everyone gay always think I run the New York Times? I can’t help you . . . with this.
NED: I’m sorry to hear that. What would you suggest I do?
FELIX: Take your pick. I’ve got twenty-three parties, fourteen gallery openings, thirty-seven new restaurants, twelve new discos, one hundred and five spring collections . . . Anything sound interesting?
NED: No one here wants to write another article. I’ve talked to half a dozen reporters and editors and the guy who wrote the first piece.
FELIX: That’s true. They won’t want to write about it. And I can’t. We’re very departmentalized. You wouldn’t want science to write about sweaters, would you?
NED: It is a very peculiar feeling having to go out and seek support from the straight world for something gay.
FELIX: I wouldn’t know about that. I just write about gay designers and gay discos and gay chefs and gay rock stars and gay photographers and gay models and gay celebrities and gay everything. I just don’t call them gay. Isn’t that enough for doing my bit?
NED: No—I don’t think it’s going to be.
FELIX: I really do have a deadline and you wouldn’t like me to get fired; who would write about us at all?
NED: Guys like you give me a pain in the ass. (He starts out.)
FELIX: Are you in the book?
NED: Yes.
Scene 3
The law office of BEN WEEKS, NED’s older brother. BEN always dresses in a suit and tie, which NED never does. The brothers love each other a great deal; BEN’s approval is essential to NED. BEN is busy with some papers as NED, sitting on the opposite side of the desk, waits for him.
BEN: Isn’t it a bit early to get so worked up?
NED: Don’t you be like that, too?
BEN: What have I done now?
NED: My friend Bruce and I went out to Fire Island and over the whole Labor Day weekend we collected the grand sum of $124.
BEN: You can read that as either an indication that it’s a beginning and will improve, or as a portent that heads will stay in the sand. My advice is heads are going to stay in the sand.
NED: Because so many gay people are still in the closet?
BEN: Because people don’t like to be frightened. When they get scared they don’t behave well. It’s called denial. (Giving NED some papers to sign.)
NED: (Signs them automatically.) What are these for?
BEN: Your account needs some more money. You never seem to do anything twice. One movie, one novel, one play. . . You know you are now living on your capital. I miss your being in the movie business. I like movies. (Unrolls some blueprints.)
NED: What are those?
BEN: I’ve decided to build a house.
NED: But the one you’re in is terrific.
BEN: I just want to build me a dream house, so now I’m going to.
NED: It looks like a fortress. Does it have a moat? How much is it going to cost?
BEN: I suspect it’ll wind up over a million bucks. But you’re not to tell that to anyone. Not even Sara. I’ve found some land in Greenwich, by a little river, completely protected by trees. Ned, it’s going to be beautiful.
NED: Doesn’t spending a million dollars on a house frighten you? It would scare the shit out of me. Even if I had it.
BEN: You can have a house anytime you want one. You haven’t done badly.
NED: Do I detect a tinge of approval—from the big brother who always called me lemon?
BEN: Well, you were a lemon.
NED: I don’t want a house.
BEN: Then why have you been searching for one in the country for so many years?
NED: It’s no fun living in one alone.
BEN: There’s certainly no law requiring you to do that. Is this . . . Bruce someone you’re seeing?
NED: Why thank you for asking. Don’t I wish. I see him. He just doesn’t see me. Everyone’s afraid of me anyway. I frighten them away. It’s called the lemon complex.
BEN: I think you’re the one who’s scared.
NED: You’ve never said that before.
BEN: Yes, I have. You just didn’t hear me. What’s the worst thing that could happen to you.
NED: I’d spend a million bucks on a house. Look, Ben—please! (He takes the blueprints from him.) I’ve—we’ve started an organization to raise money and spread information and fight any way we can.
BEN: Fight who and what?
NED: I told you. There’s this strange new disease. . .
BEN: You’re not going to do that full-time?
NED: I just want to help it get started and I’ll worry about how much time later on.
BEN: It sounds to me like another excuse to keep from writing.
NED: I knew you would say that. I was wondering . . . could your law firm incorporate us and get us tax-exempt status and take us on for free, what’s it called, pro bono?
BEN: Pro bono for what? What are you going to do?
NED: I just told you—raise money and fight.
BEN: You have to be more specific than that. You have to have a plan.
NED: How about if we say we’re going to become a cross between the League of Women Voters and the United States Marines? Is that a good-enough plan?
BEN: Well, we have a committee that decides this sort of thing. I’ll have to put it to the committee.
NED: Why can’t you just say yes?
BEN: Because we have a committee.
NED: But you’re the senior partner and I’m your brother.
BEN: I fail to see what bearing
that has on the matter. You’re asking me to ask my partners to give up income that would ordinarily come into their pocket.
NED: I thought every law firm did a certain amount of this sort of thing—charity, worthy causes.
BEN: It’s not up to me, however, to select just what these worthy causes might be.
NED: Well, that’s a pity. What did you start the firm for?
BEN: That’s one of our rules. It’s a democratic firm.
NED: I think I like elitism better. When will you know?
BEN: Know what?
NED: Whether or not your committee wants to help dying faggots?
BEN: I’ll put it to them at the next meeting.
NED: When is that?
BEN: When it is!
NED: When is it? Because if you’re not going to help, I have to find somebody else.
BEN: You’re more than free to do that.
NED: I don’t want to do that! I want my big brother’s fancy famous big-deal straight law firm to be the first major New York law firm to do pro bono work for a gay cause. That would give me a great deal of pride. I’m sorry you can’t see that. I’m sorry I’m still putting you in a position where you’re ashamed of me. I thought we’d worked all that out years ago.
BEN: I am not ashamed of you! I told you I’m simply not free to take this on without asking my partners’ approval at the next meeting.
NED: Why don’t I believe that. When is the next meeting?
BEN: Next Monday. Can you wait until next Monday?
NED: Who else is on the committee?
BEN: What difference does that make?
NED: I’ll lobby them. You don’t seem like a very sure vote. Is Nelson on the committee? Norman Ivey? Harvey?
BEN: Norman and Harvey are.
NED: Good.
BEN: Okay? Lemon, where do you want to have lunch today? It’s your turn to pay.
NED: It is not. I paid last week.
BEN: That’s simply not true.
NED: Last week was . . . French. You’re right. Do you know you’re the only person in the world I can’t get mad at and stay mad at. I think my world would come to an end without you. And then who would Ben talk to? (He embraces BEN.)
BEN: (Embracing back, a bit.) That’s true.
NED: You’re getting better at it.
The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays Page 4