The American People, Volume 2

by Larry Kramer

  The process in its entirety takes some four hours plus. Junior’s terror does not leave his eyes for one single moment. I know in his heart he knows that Vetch and his shit are a load of shit, but he’s trying valiantly to believe that the handsome men dancing around in those Speedos whom Vetch had running around even here to show us before he started that “cure is just around the corner!” might indeed be a prelude to Junior’s own return to dancing. With his new wife, unfortunately.

  So the pathetic young son of the just reelected monster president and his awful wife is lying under what looks like a flying saucer and dried shit is being pumped into his body at an undisclosed location in the middle of nowhere by a quack who says he’s discovered a cure for The Underlying Condition. And this use of shit has been talked about in the New Statesman magazine in Britain.

  It didn’t work, of course. Forty-nine guys died. There were fifty who got his treatment. Someone in the White House had heard about Vetch and his Neutralitron and saw to it that FADS gave permission for as many cases as Vetch could perform. Junior was number fifty. I wonder if he knows how lucky he is to still be alive. When The Prick wrote about all this (not incuding Junior, of course), Horace Vetch left the country real fast and with his ill-gotten gains he set up a clinic just south of the border in Huarales, Mexico. Guys are still going there. I forgot to mention that each treatment cost $25,000 cash. I loaned Junior the money and I don’t expect to ever get it back. He says he’s not allowed to have any money of his own.

  I just wish that somewhere along our way he’d said thank you. The whole thing is just pathetic. Or did I already say that?

  DANIEL WITNESSES HIS FIRST DEMONSTRATION

  It is not too long after Dodo’s “hopeful” comments in The Prick before the NITS campus is quietly invaded with groups of young men who come and sit quietly outside Building 12, where his lab is, waiting for him to appear. When he does, they rush to touch him, to get near him, to hold on to him, to beg out loud and plaintively, “Save me! Save me! Save me!” The first time this happened, it is said that Dodo broke down and wept. Contingents from foreign countries soon join, carrying their flags with signs: BRITAIN’S UC’S BEG DR. GEISERIC FOR HELP! FRANCE IMPLORES DODO! Much of this sort of thing. After a few days of them congregating, even when they’re removed at the close of day, and their reappearing the next morning, Middleditch instructs the NITS police to keep them out, period. There is no press. Dodo proclaims surprisingly, “When I scream and yell it’s usually on the evening news!”

  Middleditch asks me to meet with the group, which has now requested a meeting with “someone, anyone, who will listen to us.” And so I come to meet my first “angry activists,” as they are rather dismissively called by the NITSY Transit, our house organ. There are more than a dozen of them, all as presentable and well-spoken as you could wish, albeit frightened. And with good reason. Just looking at them I could see the various permutations of what I’m seeing in my sick patients. I asked them where you were. (This is when you went to Auschwitz.) They said they didn’t know and anyway were angry with you for abandoning them. I asked them to identify themselves.

  “Sir, my name is Simon Watchtower originally from Britain.”

  “And I am Marcus Dobkin from New York.”

  “And I am Siebert Anthony, once from Denmark.”

  “And I am Drouet Vivier from Paris.”

  “And I am Matty Milano, also from New York.”

  “And I am François Delamain from Haiti, from Port-au-Prince.”

  It went on like this for many minutes, for as soon as the twenty or so that had been admitted had finished identifying themselves, more appeared, evidently having pushed themselves past guards and inside this soon very crowded meeting room. As moving and painful as all this was, it was scary, because I could see that crowds like this will scare the shit out of anyone at NITS, anyone anywhere working on UC. They all stood quietly after identifying themselves. They expected me to say something. I could see Stuartgene now standing in the back, the unsmiling one, as I have come to view him, frowning his discomfort over why all this is happening in his hallowed scientific temple. Since he barely ever acknowledges me, I figure he disapproves of me, but no, everyone says he’s this way all the time. Whichever, he was waiting for me to speak, too.

  “First, let me apologize. I am sorry that your actions have made you unwelcome here. You must understand, or perhaps it is we who must understand, that science has not been accustomed to having our worst nightmares made so plain and obvious and visible. We know you are not well and we know you need help. That is for certain. And we want you to know this.” I was vamping and lying already, and I knew it. What did I want them to know? That nothing much was happening here, and that we were waiting for Dodo, too?

  At this point Dr. Omicidio marched in, ramrod straight and officious in a way I hadn’t seen in him before. The crowd could tell he’s important. They started to chant, “Save me! Save me!” I could tell Jerry wasn’t having any of this and I hated him for it.

  “I am Dr. Omicidio. UC falls under my supervision. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in our environment. We work here. You are not welcome here. When we have something to impart to the world, then the world will hear about it. Please leave before more police are called in to escort you out!” And he turned and started out.

  “Hey, wait a minute, buster! You can’t talk like that to us. We are taxpayers and this is a taxpayer-supported institution and we are permitted access and the right of observation! So cool it and tell us what the fuck is going on here or you will find yourselves with a little demonstration right here on your sacred premises.” This was the Dobkin guy from New York. He was tall with lots of very black hair and he spoke like an angry lawyer, which he evidently is.

  Jerry continued his exit, summoning me aside when we reached the empty corridor. He spoke to me coldly and imperiously.

  “You have been assigned to me full-time for a reason. I need you to front for me with these people, to keep them at arm’s length without letting them feel as if we are shutting them out, which is what we must do.” And then he said very quietly, looking deep into my eyes in a way I had not experienced from him before, “You must not forget that while you are one of them, you are also one of us. I trust you can manage this.”

  Then he pinched my cheek, slapped my back, and said, “You’ll do just fine.”

  And so came the “little demonstration.” The police marched in, several dozen of them, and started literally hauling the guys out, all of them, placing restraint bands around their wrists behind them if they protested, which they all did, kicking and screaming. That Dobkin guy yelled out as a cop was putting him in handcuffs, “We haven’t done anything, you pricks,” which got him a punch in his crotch.

  Several of them yelled at me as they were carried past me. One guy I recognized as one of my earliest patients yelled out: “You’re one of us! What kind of a faggot are you?”

  Fred, this was all quite amazing for me. I know you have regaled me about demonstrations, which sounded exciting. They are still exciting! I must just learn how to handle them when they occur where I work and in front of the people I work with and they are attacking me, quite rightly, as well. And I hate myself for saying this.

  I wish I could say that this little portent of things to come registered in some sort of positive way on any of my fellow workers. At our next meeting it was not even referred to. As Dodo himself didn’t show up, we couldn’t even hear a progress report from him, not that we had come to rely upon him saying anything specific. The etiquette of this place does not allow for us to push or even request, but to wait. “Good science cannot be hurried,” Middleditch said to me in a hallway. “Try to put those young men out of your mind, touching as their plight might be to you.”

  “Is it not to you?” I dared to ask.

  “I have been here a number of years, and I have witnessed many … issues, including, I might add, protesters that included my wife and daughters
.”

  “But we aren’t going to be able to shut them out forever.”

  “Be that as it may, we cannot be threatened. That is simply not allowed.”

  And he walked off.

  * * *

  Where am I hiding? You still don’t know where I’m hiding. You can’t get rid of me until you can find out where I’m hiding. And if I’ve been here for 60 million years, I’d say I’m doing a pretty good job of it. And you’re not. And I shall live forever!

  PATIENT NOTE TO HIS JUST EX-LOVER BEFORE LEAVING HIS ROOM AT PRESBY AND JUMPING OFF THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE:

  “I never imagined I would have UC and be left all alone to die.”

  WHAT IS HAPPENING TO DAVID

  A man knocked at my door. He was tall and stern and handsome. He showed me his badge. He was from the FBI and could he talk to me. We sat down and he showed me some photos. One was of that Garrie Nasturtium. Did I know him or anything about him, he asked.

  “I knew him,” I answered.

  From where and how, he wanted to know.

  I said that I had been a good friend of Mr. Hoover’s.

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  I guess he didn’t know about Mr. Hoover’s whorehouse.

  “How did you find me,” I asked him.

  “We can find anybody. You appear to have a pretty thick file already. Did you meet Nasturtium in the whorehouse you worked at?”

  I told him I had seen him there a number of times. And that’s all I knew about him.

  “Who else did you know there?”

  When I didn’t answer, he showed me a photo of the major who had loved me. I started to cry.

  “Why are you doing this to me and so many years later?” I asked.

  Then he showed me another photo, of an old and sad-looking man. I shook my head no.

  “His name was Dr. Herschel Vitabaum. He was head of Health of the World in Geneva. He came to Washington to give our government important information. His body was found buried near to where Nasturtium was found dead. Then, a bit farther on, your Major O’Lesky’s body was found buried. They were all in the backyard of Nasturtium’s house.”

  He finally left, after showing me lots of pictures of men I’d never seen and giving me his card “in case you remember anything.”

  I don’t know how, as they say, to process any of this.

  THERE ARE MANY STUDIES DONE MANY YEARS AGO INVOLVING MANY HOMOSEXUALS

  “The history of blood donation is the history of the highest calling for men and women. Tradition is so important in our world of blood.” This from Dr. Caudilla Hoare of BOAN, Blood of All Nations. One wonders if she knows much about the father of blood donations, the guy who started all the Red Bloods after the Crimean War in 1856. He was disappeared because he was a homosexual. His board found out and got rid of him fast. They did things like that then, too. No matter how marvelous the achievement, get rid of the poofter queen.

  Caudilla doesn’t want to share anything BOAN has to share. Old records. Data. Study results. All the stuff that people who do studies are usually happy to share. Or at least begrudgingly willing. Or at least a deal can be made. Over the years BOAN and ARB have taken blood from many—many with regurgia when it was still called that, many with hepatitis, and most recently many hemophiliacs, now at last classified as such. The gay community was always asked to generously cooperate. It was for a good cause, unnamed. It will turn out that gay blood included one thousand regurgiacs. The results of this last were … well, at the time, the mid-1970s, nobody knew what that meant. In fact, no one knew precisely why Caudilla was doing studies. The results of all these studies told how much of whatever was at that moment out there in “the gay community.” Important stuff. Thousands upon thousands of frozen blood samples. A veritable history of the blood of decades of New York homosexuals. Stored away? Unwilling to be shared? Most peculiar. What historian, medical or otherwise, would not long to get a gander?

  Of course, this is not quite the whole story. All the studies were of possible interest and usefulness to the pharms. So information from these studies that sounded innocent enough is worth money. It won’t be the first time gays have been unknowingly spied on for the economic benefits of others. But some participants included hemophiliacs, who were the early participants in the “trial” of G-D’s Factor VIII. Who was paying how much to whom? Is this where and how BOAN gets it money?

  Since every gay man was urged to participate in ARB/BOAN studies, total ownership of the results is not so cut and dried as any release each participant was asked to sign. “They are the property of Blood of All Nations. BOAN is a private organization,” Caudilla stated. “But you are sitting on information that might tell us something that could save time and lives,” Tommy answered. “Perhaps they could. Perhaps they couldn’t. But they are none of anybody’s business. Ask your lawyer.”

  Within these frozen samples is the only evidence that they’ve been exposed to poisoned blood. How much is this worth to whom to expose to the world? Or to keep it from the world?

  Is Caudilla evil, or is she just a selfish bitch? That’s what Tommy has come to call her. But then Tommy is coming to call lots of folks selfish bitches whether they’re female or not. Just to me, mind you. He’s still being polite to the outside world.

  Tommy wants to see Caudilla’s studies because so many GMPA clients took part in them. And many of these clients are now dead. Caudilla’s “studies” might tell us just how long gay men in New York had been sick, when they came down with whatever is revealed in their blood, now frozen away in this selfish bitch’s vaults, and provide damning evidence to put G-D out of business for peddling Factor VIII.

  So you could make a case for Caudilla being evil in not releasing this information. But evil is a word you’ve rarely heard in this history so far except from Dame Lady Hermia.

  INT. JOHNNY’S APARTMENT. DAY.

  The door breaks open and Tommy and Emma, with Buzzy and Fred, come rushing in. Johnny, Tommy’s brother, is lying on the bed. An open bottle of ZAP is lying on his stomach. Buzzy pushes Emma quickly to him.

  EMMA (with stethoscope): Your brother dove over the cliff. Sorry, Tommy. (She starts making notes about Johnny’s body, aided by Buzzy.)

  (Tommy is sitting by his brother, holding his hand and teary-eyed.)

  TOMMY: We had a wretched childhood but his was worse because he was younger and our bitch of a mother was a real pro by then. She’d been a World War Two flight instructor and would punish Johnny and me by holding our heads underwater or slapping our faces until we could take it without whimpering. We grabbed our ankles while she beat our behinds as hard as she could with a three-foot length of one-inch black rubber hose. Then she would sit on the toilet seat while she painted our naked bodies with witch hazel while she cried, “What have I done to make you a fairy?” Another set of unhappy parents who shouldn’t have married each other and had so many kids. We—I—have two born-again brothers. I never told you about them. They’re a trip. One’s a major general in the air force. He prays for me and Johnny all the time. Thanks for the house call, Emma. You’re a peach. (He lays his head on Johnny’s chest.) Goodbye, bro. Brave bro. (Taking the bottle of ZAP. To Fred:) Do you want us to shoot our murderers? We’ll be guerrillas.

  FRED: I don’t know how to shoot a gun.

  TOMMY: You can learn. I can teach you.

  FRED: I’d be afraid I’d turn it on me.

  EMMA: I did not hear all that. How do you want your brother disposed of?

  EXT. HUDSON RIVER. DAY.

  Tommy with Fred sprinkles Johnny’s ashes in the upper Hudson where the water’s edge laps your feet. They have taken off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants, and waded in.

  TOMMY: This is where he wanted to be buried. He would sing “Ol’ Man River.” (Singing:) “He just keeps rolling along.”

  DANIEL THE TROUBLED FRIEND

  Why am I having such a difficult time relaying a certain part of my history, Fr
ed? You will think I’m one negligent participant for not speaking up to tell you everything I know.

  You may wonder, as do I, why after I saw Gordon Grodzo staring at me at that Dye meeting, and then found out that he’d been a Nazi, I did not get to work, right away, instantaneously, to excavate information from him about my brother.

  I’ve known that David, my long-lost and by then (I must be honest here) not-so-missed twin, was taken off to Berlin and had somehow wound up in a German concentration camp. I’d seen his back, scarred badly, when he briefly returned to Masturbov Gardens. I’d tried to hug him and get him to tell me what happened, but he wouldn’t say one single word to me, his own twin brother, even as I begged for information. And then he disappeared. I was pissed off by his behavior, which I didn’t understand. Which I still don’t understand. Okay, he went through hell, I’m sure, but it was as if he was punishing me for it, as if I’d had something to do with what happened to him. I assume he’s still alive somewhere and that if he wants to get in touch with me, he knows how. I’ve stayed in D.C., though I would have preferred to practice in New York. But I figured he might have an easier time locating me if I stuck around here. Our folks moved to Miami and I assume they’ve died. One day Mom just stopped contacting us, so I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead, and neither do Lucas and Stephen. We were never fond of her, so it’s not so much that we cut her off as out of sight, out of mind, and we figured she felt the same. We hadn’t been good sons, but we all felt she hadn’t been a good mother. Lucas particularly still has very angry feelings about her for not being home when he was a kid. Just writing this all down makes me see how totally fucked up our family was, and why I don’t like to think about it. Dysfunctional, they call us now. I have no idea how much our parents knew about David or what he knew about them.