by Tommy Murphy
They fight and fuck as excited monkeys do.
TEACHER. Ah, Tim, effeminate monkeys don’t get work.
TIM masculinises his monkey. He’s a gorilla cruising for sex. JOHN interrupts the scene.
JOHN. How’s NIDA?
TIM stops being a monkey. The ACTORS become a car.
TIM. It’s all I talk about.
JOHN. Oh.
JOHN adjust the rear-vision mirror – an ACTOR’s hand. The ACTORS also provide the hum of the engine.
TIM. I can’t escape it. How’s chiropractics?
JOHN. I’m doing pretty well. We can stop at a servo soon if you want.
TIM. Cool. Good to have someone to drive home with.
JOHN. I wanted to check out Sydney.
JOHN shifts the gear stick – another ACTOR’s foot.
No air conditioning, sorry.
TIM. I’ll make air conditioning with my coffee cup.
TIM winds down the window, an ACTOR provides the handle and noise, another ACTOR blows the incoming breeze. TIM shovels air in with his empty coffee cup.
JOHN. You’re still mad.
JOHN turns on the indicator. A corner.
TIM. John, you deserve better than me and I don’t deserve you at all but I would like us to get back together, if you’ll have me back.
JOHN. Good.
TIM. Bit understated.
JOHN. No. I think that’s good.
TIM. Right.
Perhaps, somehow, an ice cream van passes.
JOHN. My parents want me to stay in Melbourne but, maybe, when you graduate we should try living together, maybe.
TIM. In Sydney?
JOHN. I guess.
TIM. But, and, that’s sensible and all, to stay apart, I mean the phone calls alone and long-distance relationships don’t work; so we’ll… While we’re apart we can have sex outside the relationship?
JOHN. So, it’s a relationship?
TIM. Yeah. But apart.
The car drives JOHN away. TIM fucks the nearest male ACTOR.
FUCK ACTOR. So I said to Betty, I’m not coming to voice class if we can’t take our shoes off.
TIM. Sorry, can we just, sorry, NIDA’s all I talk about, and…
FUCK ACTOR. Sorry, yeah, keep on fucking me.
TIM. Thanks.
TEACHER. Anyone else feel that?
ACTORS. No. TIM. Yes.
TEACHER. Work hard, Tim. And don’t wear those sneakers so much. You came up at a heads of department meeting and we don’t think they let your feet breathe.
TIM. No. Okay. Thanks.
TEACHER. Breathe.
A monkey screams. TIM drinks some water. An ACTOR approaches TIM.
ACTOR. That’s for my voice. I have nodules.
TIM. Sorry. Thought it was mine.
ACTOR. You can have it; I don’t want any more.
TIM. Are you afraid that you might catch –
ACTOR. No.
TIM. I don’t have AIDS. Even if I did, you can’t get it from sharing a drink.
The ACTORS scurry from TIM as screaming monkeys.
Onstage, The Stables Theatre. TIM addresses members’ night.
My name’s Tim. Tim Conigrave and, um, I’m a new member here at the Griffin, Griffin Theatre Company, and I think it’s really good that someone like me can just get up and say my idea at Members’ Night… tonight. I just graduated from NIDA, the class of ’84, so I know some of you… I have seen some really interesting things here and even though the seats are so uncomfortable you don’t notice, um, but some of you are fidgeting so just… I’ll be down in the foyer with you all so just talk to me, um, if you don’t think my thing is shit. But what I’m proposing is a devised response, not that I’m a writer, I’m an actor, but a response to HIV/AIDS which will… because the media doesn’t deal with stories about people affected except the sex-death-horror shit, which is fucked, so maybe we can do something. I heard this military general talking about the Namibian Border War on Radio National and he called civilians, ‘soft targets’, and maybe a good working title for this project could be Soft Targets.
A VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE. Sounds a bit like an anus.
TIM. Oh well, maybe you’d prefer Fuck Me Dead, y’wanker… I’ll be in the foyer.
Two
Albion Street Clinic. Enter two DOCTORS.
DOCTOR ONE. John 2118.
DOCTOR TWO. Tim 2117.
TIM and JOHN go to separate consulting rooms. Their DOCTORS speak in unison.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. How do you define your sexuality: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual?
JOHN. Homosexual.
TIM. Gay.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. Do you practise anal sex?
JOHN. Yes.
TIM. Practice makes perfect.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. Okay, and are you active or passive?
JOHN. Well, both.
TIM. Kinda, both.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. If versatile, what ratio?
JOHN. Oh… Well… Fifty-fifty.
TIM. Twenty-eighty. Mostly a top
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. Are you in a relationship?
JOHN. Yes.
TIM. Yes.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. Would you say it was monogamous?
JOHN. Yes.
TIM. Um, well, no.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. How many women have you had sex with in the last six months?
JOHN. None.
TIM. None.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. How many men?
JOHN. One.
TIM. Some. Three? Some.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. Have you paid for sex in the past month?
JOHN. No. I haven’t.
TIM. Sauna? Not this month.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. Okay. I need to also ask you how you would feel in two weeks if I told you that you were positive.
TIM. I’m involved in a theatre project about AIDS…
JOHN. I would be devastated.
TIM.…so I know it’s not a death sentence.
DOCTORS ONE and TWO. What support mechanisms do you have?
JOHN. My boyfriend.
TIM. My boyfriend.
DOCTOR TWO (to TIM). Your glands were up all over your body. I’ll take some blood now.
TIM and JOHN are leaving the clinic together.
JOHN (to TIM). Probably just the flu. Mine weren’t up.
TIM. Yeah. I’m not bothered.
JOHN. Should we walk to Oxford Street for lunch?
There’s a bounce in TIM’s step.
TIM. Sure.
JOHN. Not like that.
TIM. What? Shut up. I just had an AIDS test. I’m a fast-lane gay now.
He moves as a fast-lane gay moves.
A Sydney living room. Enter RICHARD, an AIDS patient, a grotesque puppet with an empty frame and sunken cheeks, half-bed half-man, coughing and spluttering. He holds a drip stand. Tubes dangle.
RICHARD. I have a recurring one. My boat has broken down in the Congo but everyone else gets a nice little boat ride. I have to walk through this jungle with snakes and spiders and quicksand. When I fall into it someone pulls me out but I always sink back in. People drop supplies from a helicopter but it can’t land. I’m angry and lonely. But I learn a lot. I see a gorilla having a baby. Everyone has seen a gorilla in a book but the actual experience is something else.
TIM. We are asking people –
RICHARD. I have night sweats.
TIM. The cast and I made some set questions for our research that we –
RICHARD. I hate having to take morphine. I hate the taste.
TIM. What’s it for?
RICHARD. For headaches that nothing else touches. It also helps with the cough.
TIM. You must have good parties.
RICHARD. Oh, p-lease. It’s not a party drug. It’s hideous. It tastes revolting and cuts you out of the world.
RICHARD has a coughing fit.
TIM. There’s a question –
RICHARD. Space shuttle crashed this
morning.
TIM. I saw that.
RICHARD. Schoolteacher died in it.
TIM. That’s right. There’s a question we’re asking everyone we interview for the theatre project. Is there a message about living with AIDS that you want people to know?
RICHARD. I don’t think I’ll get to see your play.
Albion Street Clinic. DOCTOR TWO approaches TIM.
DOCTOR TWO. Tim 2117. Thanks. Take a seat, Tim. Tim, I’m sorry to inform you that you are positive.
TIM. Shit, you’re kidding.
DOCTOR TWO. This is the result sheet.
TIM. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but my boyfriend was just told he’s negative.
DOCTOR TWO. Right. And obviously you have a sexual relationship with him?
TIM. For nine years.
DOCTOR TWO. Okay. Well… I’ll just ask you to return outside. I’ll just need a moment.
Waiting room. TIM approaches JOHN.
JOHN. Tim?
TIM. John.
JOHN. Tim.
TIM. John…
JOHN. What?
TIM. I’m positive.
JOHN. But I’m negative.
TIM. The doctors are yelling. Why? They’re yelling.
DOCTOR TWO approaches.
DOCTOR TWO. Tim and John, would you both like to come in please…
Consulting Room. Instantaneous.
…Thank you. John. I’m sorry. You have been given the wrong result.
TIM. No.
DOCTOR TWO. You are in fact positive, John. I’m terribly sorry. I should explain. If your result is negative you see a counsellor, and if you are positive you see a doctor. The clerk put your file in the wrong pigeonhole and the counsellor gave you the result without checking it. I am terribly sorry. This should not happen. I am truly so sorry. I want to take some blood from both of you and do a cell count. John, if you would like to come lie on the bed.
At home. TIM and JOHN are in bed.
JOHN. How long have we been trying to get to sleep?
TIM. I drifted off before.
JOHN. I have no idea what time it is.
TIM snakes his head under JOHN’s singlet.
TIM. I know you hate it when I do this. I love it. It’s so warm. Is it Tuesday or Monday?
JOHN. Dunno. Don’t care. Can you not stretch my singlet?
TIM. I’m not. I can hear the little meteorites in your tummy.
JOHN. What does this mean for my business? We’ve just signed the papers.
TIM. Nothing. It means nothing. You still practise.
JOHN. I tell my business partner.
TIM. But let’s limit who we tell. A gay actor’s enough, let alone an infected poofter looking to be cast. Maybe I thought doing a play about HIV made me immune. Soft Targets isn’t going great and they want to perform it in the Mardi Gras Festival. They love butcher’s paper too much. When that Challenger thing crashed, the NASA thing, the actors all came running in with an idea and they want to start the play set in space with spacemen hoovering the set – and I don’t know if that’s good. The play might be a disaster.
JOHN. Do you think I infected you?
TIM doesn’t answer.
The way our cells are, me being more advanced, you with your high T8s –
TIM. It’s not important.
JOHN. I just wish I hadn’t infected you.
TIM comes out from under the singlet.
TIM. We don’t know if that’s what happened. We can never know. It didn’t even have a name. We didn’t know it was lurking.
JOHN. Peter’s negative and I’ve only had sex with one other boy. How unlucky can I be?
TIM. Doctors don’t know enough about this yet. We’re both infected. That’s all we know. I have a surprise. Condoms and lube. We are going to welcome them into our family.
JOHN. I don’t want to have anal sex, Tim. That’s how we got into this mess.
TIM. I’m going to leave the theatre project.
JOHN. Don’t.
TIM. I only started it because I was curious. Now that’s… It’s
taking its toll. I have to consider my health now.
JOHN. Are we eighty?
TIM. I’m going to tell the director. We are eighty. All of a sudden… It’s hit me now.
JOHN. We’re twenty-five.
TIM. I think it’s hit me now.
JOHN. Let’s try to sleep.
TIM. I don’t want to sleep. I want to stay awake for the rest of my life. I want you to hold me. I want my mum to scoop me up and my schoolteachers and all my friends and family… I want everyone to hold me and say it’s all right.
JOHN. It’s all right, Tim.
TIM. But it’s not. We are going to die.
Three
Conigrave home. TIM is half-dressed in a suit. His MOTHER is taking up the hem.
MARY-GERT. I’ll kill your father for eating the glacé cherries. Did you see the letters for you?
Must update your address. Haven’t lived here for years.
TIM. They weren’t important.
MARY-GERT. Hold still please, Tim.
TIM (the trouser leg). Leave it to bag.
MARY-GERT. I didn’t know your brother was so much taller. You don’t wear a suit, I suppose.
Heaven knows how you’re paying the bills.
TIM. I got a grant to develop another play.
MARY-GERT. I remember you in Romeo and Juliet. You were so… beautiful.
TIM. And I’m doing my social work. We’re seeing a lot more boys at ACON from other agencies, like STD clinics or the AIDS Bus that works up at The Wall. That’s where boy sex-workers find their customers.
MARY-GERT. Oh God. I already have to hide choc-drops from your father and now I’ll have to hide all cake ingredients. I’ll buy glacé cherries in the morning, I suppose. Is John eating here?
TIM. No. At his.
MARY-GERT. I set up the sunroom. If he wants to stay.
TIM. Thank you. Does Anna’s fiancé stay in the sunroom? MARY-GERT. He doesn’t stay. Maybe John could pick up some glacé cherries on his way over.
TIM. No. He’s had a rough day.
MARY-GERT. He wouldn’t mind. Surely. You could call him there.
(The hem.) Oh blow, I’ve done that wrong. I’ll repin it.
MARY-GERT repins the hem.
TIM. John was having a big thing with his folks. Send Dad or I’ll go.
MARY-GERT. I wouldn’t want to trouble anyone; only people are coming round the next day – people from out of town.
TIM. How many functions are we having?
MARY-GERT. Just the normal amount, Tim. She is our only daughter.
Enter DICK.
DICK. Who’s our only daughter?
MARY-GERT. Anna, Dick. Ask a silly question.
DICK. How’s the suit? Oh yeah. Not bad.
MARY-GERT. Smart.
DICK. Bit of room.
MARY-GERT. No.
DICK. You’ve lost weight.
TIM. I go to the gym.
DICK. The gym? Well. You box?
TIM. No. Weights.
DICK. Good.
TIM. You ate the glacé cherries.
DICK. Yes.
MARY-GERT. And I’m dark.
DICK. I’ll buy more. You get the letters we kept for you?
TIM. Yeah.
DICK. Ought to update your address, mate.
TIM. I have. They’re ancient.
DICK. So you, ah, hear we’re going to have a spit at the reception?
TIM. Nice.
DICK. In a ballroom.
TIM. Mum said.
DICK. Yeah, over at Ripponlea. No, it’ll be a big show, don’t you worry.
TIM. So it’ll be the full deal? The mass and all?
DICK. Yeah. Course.
TIM. Communion and all?
DICK. Yes.
TIM. Is she a Catholic still?
MARY-GERT. Tim.
DICK. And we got an orchestra.
TIM. Jesus.
MARY-GERT. Tim.
DICK. A small chamber orchestra –
TIM. Bit over the top, isn’t it?
MARY-GERT. Tim.
DICK. She’s my only daughter.
TIM. I think it sounds tasteless.
MARY-GERT. Tim.
DICK. Cool it.
TIM. No. This feels like a charade.
DICK. I won’t have you destroy this wedding.
MARY-GERT. It’s all right, Dick.
TIM. I’m being a jerk. I’m sorry. I’m in a strange –
DICK. If you don’t want to be involved then don’t be.
DICK exits.
MARY-GERT. Thank you, Timothy. Slip them off, please.
TIM takes off the pants.
Gently. I’ve pinned that, please.
TIM. Sorry.
MARY-GERT. Bite your tongue. I’ve got relatives arriving from everywhere this week. I don’t need stirring.
TIM. I’m not stirring.
TIM has stuck himself in the calf with a pin from the hem.
MARY-GERT. Careful. You stuck yourself.
TIM. It’s tiny.
MARY-GERT. Needs Mercurochrome.
TIM. No need and you should use Betadine now.
Enter JOHN.
JOHN. Hello.
TIM (to JOHN). Topolino. (A nickname.)
MARY-GERT. Hello John, you look sick.
JOHN. No.
MARY-GERT. You’re all right?
JOHN. A cold.
MARY-GERT. He doesn’t look well.
TIM. He’s fine, Mum. Don’t fuss.
JOHN. Just had a long day.
MARY-GERT. It’s a farce here tonight but you’re welcome to join us for dinner. Better get going on it. Heavens, look at the time.
MARY-GERT exits.
TIM. It went okay?
JOHN. Yeah.
TIM. What’d they say?
JOHN. Well. Went pretty good. Dad’d already suspected something. He found it strange that we went to Europe five months after I opened the practice.
TIM. Probably relieved you’re not pregnant.
JOHN. They asked about my disability insurance, of course. Mum was concerned about my weight and just kept blowing her nose.
TIM. My dad was asking about me losing weight.