The American People, Volume 2

by Larry Kramer

  “I could not believe anyone in their right mind would put her in charge of the health of The American People,” he is to write in his memoirs, which of course he will be unable to get published.

  Candidates for President Ruester’s cabinet have been hard for Manny Moose to find. Peter has not come to Washington welcomed by that class of public servants usually available to work for the good of their country. Hoidene Swilkers will be the first of Ruester’s four secretaries of HAD. Unfortunately, she will be the best.

  To be in the kitchen with Roddy when he had his hands up Hoidene’s maid Pansi’s skirt as he was describing to me the auction when he bought his latest prize set of matched Salinas sows threw me for a loop. No one would believe any of this, I said to myself. They’d think I made it up.

  FRED GETS CREAMED FOR WRITING THIS IN THE NEW YORK PRICK

  The men who have been stricken don’t appear to have done anything that many New York gay men haven’t done at one time or another. We’re appalled that this is happening to them and terrified that it could happen to us. It’s easy to become frightened that one of the many things we’ve done or taken over the past years may be all that it takes for a tiny something or other to get into us who knows when from doing who knows what. In the past we have been a divided and invisible community. I hope we can all get together on this emergency, undivided, and with all the strength our numbers in so many ways possess. We must take care of each other and ourselves.

  DR. DANIEL JERUSALEM VISITS DR. HOAKUS BENOIS-FRUCHT

  Dr. Daniel Jerusalem. It is a mighty-sounding name, isn’t it? It sounds like it should summon its bearer to perform courageous feats. My internship and residency in infectious diseases was done at the renowned Rubinsky (now Table) Medical Center in New York. Washington never having been any good for either the study or the successful treatment of infectious anything, I thought it would be the place where I could be most useful. At the commencement of this mess, I am almost fifty years old. Half a century of faithful service. To what? In all efforts to become the hero of my life I have so far failed. (I am sounding like Philip and I must stop it!) I did well at Rubinsky. I believe I am a good doctor. I am also an intelligent man who is not blind.

  If something fatal is being spread sexually there will be no way to stop it short of universal chastity or an immediate cure. I am sufficiently familiar with the world of medical research to know that the latter is unlikely, and with human nature to know that the former is impossible. That seems obvious to me, and I assume that others smell millions of dead bodies too. How can there not be others blessed with this modicum of insight?

  I make an appointment to come to New York to see Dr. Hoakus Benois-Frucht, one of my faculty supervisors when I was at Table, nee Rubinsky. (The Table Brothers paid Dean Grafft $10 million to break the ancient Rubinsky will.) Hokie had seen the first cases. What could he tell me?

  To walk into Table Medical Center is to walk into what is perhaps one of the best medical centers in the world. Every white-coated body you pass in a corridor is without doubt an expert in his or her field. Patients pour in from everywhere for treatment. There is certainly nothing near to touching Table in Washington, certainly not at NITS, where the fact that doctors work for the government and are civil servants seems in the end to defeat its own purpose. Yes, I come back here and walk Table’s halls with awe. It’s not that I’m filled with pride in being a graduate; it’s more like I’m aware that since leaving here I’ve let them down. If you haven’t succeeded in the outside world, a walk down these halls seems to be saying, it’s your own fucking fault. We gave you everything we knew.

  Over the years, Dr. Benois-Frucht has made the Skin Department one of the world’s best. Skin is often a medical center’s stepchild: everyone has it, but nobody pays it much attention beyond the cosmetic, which makes it slightly disdained. But since there are more vain people than sick ones, Skin is also a medical center’s most profitable division, particularly since dermatologists have learned to charge many times more than what other “specialists” get away with for the same few minutes. He is a prissy man, Benois-Frucht, and a proud one: his name, he says, is a compound of two ancient families, one Dutch, one French, both American from an early date. He’s a chatty man. His eyes light up when he hears or relays any gossip. I like him because of his idiosyncrasies as well as his brain. Everyone in Washington seems boring compared with a Benois-Frucht.

  “Precisely why I left there!” he exclaims when I tell him I’m bored in D.C. “I had a fellowship at NITS during the early Gist years. Talk about a silly, useless old queen!”

  He is responsible for developing the Benois-Frucht Test for the analysis of urine in Third World countries. His test has allowed, for the first time, verification of the fact that Third World diets are remarkably deficient in certain vitamins. It will eventually prove a cheap means of testing for UC there, too, perhaps the only cheap thing that will appear on the benighted landscape of this oncoming plague. While it will become more than obvious to the naked eye who’s sick from this shit and who isn’t, it is unfortunately the requirement of scientific research to require verification. You cannot just call a red dress red. You must prove that the red is not maroon, whatever maroon is, or lavender or pink or vermilion or fire engine, which is not so easy, or so useful, as most scientists and researchers insist upon insisting. All of Hokie’s famous research (he will become an important investigator of nimroid, discovering it has a life of its own) has always been funded, to the tune of many millions, by the Sherman Stumpf Foundation. Shermie Stumpf is an old boyfriend of Hokie’s. They had crushes on each other as rich kids in New York. Both men, in their late sixties, are in the closet. Shermie once propositioned me at a bar, and Hokie gave me an A in skin when I allowed him a blow job, both these interactions occurring during my first year as a Rubinsky intern. I needed that A desperately to keep up my average and maintain my scholarship. He has a nice smile, Hokie does, so the deed wasn’t as arduous as the motivation was tacky. It just happened, in his office, while we were going over my final paper, and he had his hand on my knee, and it sort of felt nice, and—well, when he finished he just wrote a nice big A on my paper. I have no idea what came over me. But to this day Hokie looks me in the eye and maintains he’s straight. I will never understand how a man so many people know is gay the minute he opens his mouth can maintain in all seriousness the fiction that he’s a heterosexual.

  Hokie orders me to take my clothes off. “You’re here, so let me look at you. I’m the expert on this stuff, remember. You are sexually active, even in the District? I had no sex life when I was at NITS. Sexless place. Hateful. We must talk about it. I hear Gist is on his way out finally.”

  He is paying particular attention to my testicles. “A lot of fibrous tissue here.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Isn’t it the way I always was?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You sucked my cock.”

  “I most certainly did not. And that in no way would have given me an opportunity to examine your testicles professionally.”

  “Oh, Hokie.”

  Still holding on to my balls, he looks at me. “A lot of your friends are going to die. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Perhaps millions. Perhaps tens of millions. Perhaps hundreds of millions. Perhaps a billion. Anyway, a lot. Not that even one or two wouldn’t be too many. But you get my drift. You certainly do have very large balls. I’ve never been certain what large balls means. It must mean something. George Washington had very large balls. Did you know that? Look at all those famous paintings of him in his tight britches. What a basket! Perhaps it’s a genetic sign of leadership. Do you believe in signs? Go out and tell them to stop fucking. Then they won’t spread this. My, how low your scrotum hangs. You must sit down more often. Unless, of course, you want a long scrotum. Some people do. I find it unappetizing. A lot of death down the road. Tip of the iceberg. Lots of men are going to jump off the c
liff, to use Dr. Brookner’s quaint expression. Young men. They won’t get sick if they stop fucking. A lot of fibrous tissue around your balls.”

  He gives my testicles a final rub-together with his thumb and fingers, like some Indian fakir with his metal marbles. Then he pats them paternally and lets them go. “Keep your eyes open.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “If I knew, I could get the Herkimer. There’s a Herkimer Prize in all this. I want one. Don’t know how to get it. Virus probably. It’s always a virus probably. Easiest convincing answer is always a virus probably. I’m not a virus man. I’m a skin man. Surface. On the nose, not in it. There goes my Herkimer. No skin man ever won a Herkimer. That’s why we don’t feel guilty charging so much. Pity. I saw the damn thing first. That Nazi Greptz is going to say he saw it first. Mark my words. But he didn’t. I did. Greptz is an infectious-disease expert. A Herkimer’s possible for an infectious-disease man. No, I don’t know what’s going on. The Truth said I said it’s spread by sex. That isn’t exactly what I told that Dimley woman, but it is. Spread by common, dirty, little old sex. Weenies up the asshole. Tongues up the asshole. Fists up the asshole. Your boys have gone too far. Tell them all to stop. Nothing to do but stop. You’re still in good shape.” He takes some skin cream and starts massaging it into my testicles. “For the fibrous tissue. Deep penetrating action. Soothing.”

  “Hokie!”

  “Made from the same ingredients as Helena Rubinstein. Would you believe it? Smart woman, Helena Rubinstein. Started out in Australia. Old family recipe. Why don’t you go on and get an erection? It’s all right with Hokie. You have a nice cock. You have no idea how many not-nice cocks I look at every day. People simply do not take good care of their skin. Past a certain age the skin requires constant care. It dries out. It sags. It becomes quite unpleasant to the touch. You’re becoming an old man. You can’t even get an erection. Oh, get dressed. It probably wasn’t such a good idea. It isn’t that I want to masturbate you. That would be an unprofessional act. I want a sample of your semen. Something going wrong in the semen is my current considered professional opinion. If there is something untoward in the semen, then when this semen is inserted in bodily cavities—rectum or mouth—horrid things will happen. You have no idea what I’m seeing in mouths. And up assholes. That’s usually not my territory, belongs to Howie Horewits in Gastro-Ent. But now I’m called in to consult. Hideous. Purple scabs. Scabrous purple sores. Monstrous skin eruptions. Wretched. Putrid. Runny. And smelly. Looks like a vel reaction. Vel’s not my territory either. Belongs to Grace Hooker. You remember Grace Hooker? Used to lecture here. Used to be a nun. Probably still is. One leg. Or is it arm? There’s something in saliva, too, I’ll bet my Herkimer. The sores are less runny if they’re in the mouth. Interesting. Spit and shit. Spit belongs to … I don’t think anyone’s cornered spit yet. But they will. Probably a Herkimer in spit. I could be wrong about spit. Spit might be a red herring. The race is always to the swiftest. They’re going to come out of the woodwork. It’s got nothing to do with intelligence. Just luck. There’s an old Dutch saying: He who is lucky is unlucky. Do you think you could go into the little boys’ room and jerk off into a cup? Think dirty thoughts. Pretend I’m massaging your cock with the deep penetrating action of Helena Rubinstein. Pretend you’re a policeman and I’m a bad young truant. Isn’t life sad? No, I didn’t tell The Truth it’s only caused by sex. What serious scientist would say anything as specific as that on Day One? That Velma Dimley is a stupid woman. As dumb as that stupid Arden Morron, who runs Spots. We’ll pay a price for their stupidity. Mark my words. On this I bet a Herkimer. Velma Dimley is a stupid cunt.”

  I dress, walk down the hallway, go into the little boys’ room, enter a stall, and do as Hokie asks. Why? Because he may not sound like it but he’s very smart. He has fourteen Mendlestick Prizes, which is some kind of record, certainly for anyone in Skin. He has a Forwarts. He has a Needler. Yes, every time he opens his mouth something unexpected comes out. The papers he writes for the journals are always of astounding perception and brilliance. The trudgeon. Hokie discovered it. You can’t be in practice today without utilizing a trudgeon to test for skin cancer. Foresnaps. Same thing. Retina globular ointment tinctured with okly does cure warts. Skin dermal abrasions can be caused by hyperdrangia. So I jerk off into his cup and return to present it to his nurse. Maybe my gism will help. Every interaction with Hokie is always a mass of contradictions.

  I’d like to interject a theory I will see played out over the coming years. My theory involves what the Greeks called “the tragic flaw.” Everyone who could have been important, who should have been able to contribute something major to stop this epidemic from becoming a plague, was prevented from being important because of some personal trait that had nothing to do with medicine or science. Hokie sounds silly. Even with all his prizes, even now, when he’s been proved right so many times, no one listens to Dr. Hoakus Benois-Frucht. He is the first person to see what’s happening and nobody listens to him because he often comes across as a silly, flighty man and that is that.

  And now that I have the advantage of hindsight, and am able to piece together many disparate strands, I can see my own tragic flaw, my inability to act in the face of mounting evidence, or in the case of my own brother, guilt.

  “Go back to Washington. My regards to the First Lady. I once removed a fenal wart from her … never mind. Oh, what do I care? I’m not going to win a Herkimer. From the tip of her tongue. Most unusual wart. You don’t usually find fenal warts on tongues. Too much moisture inside a mouth. She must have been doing something major with that licker to dry it out so. When you’re in town again come to dinner. I have nice balls too. I’ll show them to you. We can play with each other’s balls. Balls are safe. As long as you don’t draw blood. Try not to draw blood. Blood is where the trouble is. Come to think of it, while you’re here, let me draw some blood.”

  And so my blood was drawn too. Which is why I know now that in 1981 my semen was rein-free and my blood was low in blodes. Most peculiar. But I had normal vel. All this knowledge today tells us a lot. It explains why I’m still alive. It still doesn’t tell us how. Hokie says one of these days it will.

  “Tell you something else I’m thinking,” he says to me as I’m leaving. “Something funny going on here. Nothing going on now hasn’t been going on since time began. Up the ass, down the throat, we’ve all been there before, without chagrin. Something too neat and tidy going on. Got to be a virus. Got to be. Only thing is, no virus knows how to be so picky and choosy. No, sir. No virus is that smart. Why, it’s acting just like some bigoted human being knowing exactly who he’s going to hate.”

  When I return to Washington my scrotum still feels warm. It feels warm for several days and nights, as if Hokie’s massage had irradiated it with the chemotherapy of Mission. Everyone I know has had every possible transmissible venereal disease for the past decade, at least. Everyone I know, including myself, has fucked and been fucked and interacted in every conceivable anatomical position from blowing in ears to sucking toes—for at least a full ten of these drug and disco years, and for many much longer. If anything is going to spread itself around, it’s got many a welcoming host. If it’s not already being passed around. Sexopolis couldn’t have got the message around any faster.

  As if to bear me out I discover upon my return that three more of my patients have died from what the attendings at Isidore Peace classify as Unknown Causes. This is happening too quickly.

  Hokie’s right. Why now?

  I call a number of my fellow gay doctors. In each instance I’m told that I’m an alarmist and that a few cases do not an epidemic make. My protestations of “But indeed they do! And are!” elicit responses along the lines of “You’re such a worrier. It will go away. Be patient. Gist even said so in his text about it. ‘This too will pass.’” It reminds me of when I was a little boy and knew I was seei
ng things that nobody else did. While I waited for Uncle Hyman to canvass his route I met a crazy gypsy fortune-teller in her tacky storefront on Ninth Street. I’d given her some of my candy to hear her prediction that I would have “a long and eventful life, but those around you will be sad.” I nodded, fully comprehending life’s sadness even then.

  One of these days I must get back in touch with Fred. I’ve read how hard he’s fighting.

  INT. CITY HALL. DAY.

  A rotunda reception area. Various bureaucrats are milling around. A banner reading: DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS. A big cake iced GOOD LUCK HENRY. Henry and Fred talking at the side.

  FRED: So I just go over and say hello. Henry, he doesn’t know I hate him?

  HENRY: I told him I invited you, that we went to Yaddah together. This is my farewell party. What’s he going to do? Let’s go.

  They start walking to the group surrounding the mayor, Kermit Goins. Bodyguards move in closer to the mayor.

  GUARD (to Henry): His Honor would like your friend to disappear.

  FRED (jumps into action quickly, pushing toward Goins): Mr. Mayor, you’ve got to help us. There’s this new disease. You must know about it! We need help. Bad … Badly … Bad …