by Larry Kramer
Pearly and the boys don’t show for their next session.
DEEP THROAT ON (IM)MOR(T)ALITY
I didn’t say, Fred, that the law is full of shit. It’s the system that’s full of shit. Alas, there is no reliable guiding light to decide how much or how little shit (in this case ZAP) should be administered. Trials have always been built on the principle of escalating to as much as you can until the patient croaks and trying to stop just short of it. And alas, Jerry is not a decision maker. Alas, Jerry is a consensus builder. Good science is not built on consensus. Scott-Joynt in Glasgow and Nelson Golly in London have formed a surprising alliance to claim that America is doing everything wrong and that it’s time for America to “give over in your complete domination of and dictatorship over worldwide medical emergencies.” Dodo and his mishmash of mixed signals have become an international laughingstock, not that you would know it in Franeeda. Golly thinks he knows a fake when he sees one. Wait until they get an even bigger load of Jerry. I guess you could say that things are “hotting up,” as Bledd-Wrench stated it to me, except that nothing will come of it, which I told her.
Word of Bosco’s death has finally reached us. He left a paper for publication in the NEJMonkeys that was heartbreaking. He titled it “Hail and Farewell, Noble Friends.” Too bad. We could use him now. The animal model will always be needed, especially when you can’t locate any monkeys and animal activists are winning and chimp research becomes a no-no. Word of Dr. Sister Grace’s suicide is also leaking out. Hers is a great loss. Everyone badmouths her now, of course, which is usually the clue to a greatness of historic proportions. Hermia showed me the note she batted out to you and Daniel, riddled with typos among her tears. She also showed me a report that verified Grace’s discoveries. “Her Nobel for vel has been acknowledged for the great discovery it was.” The good Dame says she’s not feeling all that warm toward you. She says she feels abandoned, “but via that route can only lead me toward unquenchable strength.”
It should be very difficult to get a human being to take a drug that a sick monkey failed on. That’s what a trial used to be all about. You win some, you lose some. People die on trials because of this truth. PIs are very selfish with the truth. They have to be. You want to know why doctors never talk much? Yes, there’s something very immoral lurking here. But there are only so many ways we can find out some things. That’s why pharma scientists will pump anything into you they can get away with. That’s why they’d rather do so many trials abroad. They don’t have to use monkeys over there. Well, we won’t be using them here, either.
It’s a complicated issue. Pharmaceutical company ovens the world over are stuffed with the ashes of drugs that had “animal toxicities” that actually wouldn’t have bothered humans or, more sadly, might have saved them, if the monkey hadn’t had its FADS-induced departure. But if something doesn’t work for a variety of reasons, into the oven it goes. Ovens, as Hitler taught us, are not only for baking cakes. They are for destroying evidence. A pharmaceutical company does not want you to know what it has failed at. It doesn’t want you to know the whole story of what it’s succeeded at either. It’s not a “whole story” kind of business, making medicines for our bodies. And no company has a very long run before it gets dethroned.
We’re coming up to another … I hesitate to call it a milestone; let’s just call it another chance. Here we’ve got this plague of UC and with the “success” of ZAP—because that’s what Dash is peddling, big-time—all the pharms will soon be sniffing around, getting hotter pants each passing day. Such a constellation of possibilities doesn’t come up all that often: growing plague, growing numbers of desperate dying people, drug companies with access to a LOT of money, more than ever in their histories, really; no drug company before, during, or after the war (where they’d made fortunes selling stuff on black markets) had treasuries like the current bunch has accumulated in their greed. They also have smarter people working for them. I say this with no trepidation, which perhaps I should because young scientists these days with their unbridled ambitions are not overburdened with the milk of human kindness. And cretins run all the companies now. No George Mercks or Henry Klines, Charlie Lederle, Eli Lilly, the founding fathers.
So what does one do with crappy ZAPpy?
One gives it to people, of course. What else is one to do? That is why we have our FADS, not to shelter us from harm as they would have us believe, but really to legally usher us as close to the vicinity of an oven as they can. And we thought they were here to look after our health. Oh, dear God, it’s all such a crap game, can’t you see? Just like old Democracy itself.
HERMIA AND GRACE’S SUICIDE NOTE
“My dear freddy and danil iis my sad duty to tell you your grace committs suiciede. I tell mother superior and lucas j I named Hermai my enxt f kin.”
We have lived in this same city for some twenty-five years and never visited each other or so much as dialed each other on a telephone. From certain papers that she left for me I don’t think she performed her exit willingly, but out of desperation and great sadness. It will be my task to try to find out why.
INT. EMMA’S OFFICE. DAY.
Buzzy, Emma’s nurse, has handed her some papers. She looks at them sadly. She looks up at Fred. Tommy is here with him.
EMMA: Your liver is tanking. (Hands them the report.)
FRED: What’s that mean?
EMMA: If these numbers keep going down it means … your time is running out.
FRED: How long?
EMMA: I don’t know. Livers are very tricky.
FRED: What about ZAP?
EMMA: I can’t give it to anyone in good conscience. I’ll cobble something else to try.
FRED: What happened to all those lesions everybody got?
EMMA: Nobody knows. They just disappeared. (Screaming at him:) WHY AREN’T YOU STILL NOT TELLING THEM TO STOP FUCKING!
FRED: I TOLD THEM AND THEY STOPPED TALKING TO ME! WHY AREN’T YOU TELLING THEM YOURSELF AT LAST?
They suddenly hug on to each other, joined by Tommy, then by Buzzy.
EXT. NYU MEDICAL CENTER. DAY.
Fred and Tommy are walking from Emma’s office. Fred stops suddenly and just stands there looking into space. Then he takes the medical report Emma had given him of his lab numbers and stuffs it in his pocket. He tries to stand tall and strong as he marches forward.
INT. FRED’S LOFT. DAY.
Fred is staring into space. Tommy is observing him to see how he is.
TOMMY (finally): How are you taking this?
FRED (finally): I am not going to die.
TOMMY: Good man.
LAURIE GARRETT, PULITZER-WINNING SCIENCE REPORTER, WRITES TO FRED
The bottom line for me is that the gay community is taking the rap on this.
But by keeping records sealed from sight, governments and pharmaceutical manufacturers continue to endanger lives. My attempts to write all this have met with lack of interest and total rejection at my every attempt, even by the publisher of my book, The Coming Plague.
A very large lawsuit against Greeting was filed in the USA on behalf of the nation’s hemophiliacs. But as part of whatever settlement, Greeting demanded and received a court order to seal all the records. I have unsuccessfully tried various legal maneuvers to get the seals broken, but I fear the truth is lost to science. My info from litigants indicates Greeting knew about hepatitis contamination in the 1960s and did nothing about it when releasing their Factor VIII. That they’re fighting so hard to keep the deposition hidden should tell us all something.
THE ROAD TO ZAP
DEBBI DRIVER, R.N., DOES NOT LIKE FARRELL OBERNOUGHT, M.D., AND HERE ARE SOME REASONS WHY
Oh, I didn’t mind being transferred out here. I couldn’t take another day of Dr. Jerrold Omicidio. What a tight-ass. Besides I’m needed here, much more than in D.C., where the NITS ZAP trial is tiny compared with the mammoth one that must be done here in San Francisco. This town is death city. I have never seen so many sic
k and dying men in my life. This is new stuff. Boy, is it new stuff. It’s historic what we have to do here. It’s like climbing mountains! This is what I trained for, what I’ve wanted ever since I saw my first nurse’s uniform in some movie and asked my mommy, “What’s that she’s wearing? Why is she wearing that? What’s she going to do in it? I want to do it too.”
Having said all these worthy things, I am reduced to working for another jerk. Who is Farrell Obernought and why am I thinking unkind things about him? Because he’s very important and I’m trying to understand him, which is not an easy thing to do. Because Farrell Obernought is in charge of San Francisco and that means he’s in charge of me.
I am frightened. I am not a person who gets frightened. I have worked in every shithole since Vietnam. I have 2,500 people in our trial, and Farrell Obernought, just like Jerry Omicidio, hasn’t got a compassionate bone in his body.
Farrell Obernought is tall and handsome. This is a man who graduated from Yaddah Med and even went to Cambridge. At Cambridge, I believe, he learned to dress so well. Tweeds look good on tall men with broad shoulders and nice-proportioned feet for their brogues. Hair, I forgot the hair. He has good hair, dark and wavy, and it sits in place naturally so that the waves stay put without goo. You don’t see many aging heads of hair these days that stay put without goo. It’s sort of a freaky feat, this, like President Ruester’s hair always being black with no gray or goo. Almost in his grave and he’s never had a gray hair. How can you trust a man like that? Exactly! Now here we have another goo-less hairy leader who’s keeping his mouth shut, afraid to let anyone know that he doesn’t know what the fuck we’re seeing while he acts as if he does! Just like our dear president. And Dr. O. Nobody cares that a 1500 mg daily dose of ZAP is knocking them dead from coast to coast.
Every patient wishes Dr. Farrell Obernought were gay because he’s every patient’s dream come true. But he isn’t gay, so when they find out, then he isn’t every patient’s dream come true. Then he’s a dream deferred, which is to say he isn’t a dream at all. This is no way to feel when you’re walking toward your death. And your doctor exudes, yes that’s the word, exudes, reeks so much charisma that he doesn’t give a shit about you. Gay guys pick up on this quickly about their docs. If they sense one iota of, what do I call it, not homophobia exactly, but discomfort, that word will do for now, the doctor-patient relationship is on a whole different footing, and one that I don’t think is all that healthy or conducive to success in the work we’re trying to do. Whatever it is. Right now it’s still mainly about ramming 1500 mg a day down everyone’s throat. Guys in the ward vomit 1500 mg. Farrell won’t come anywhere near them if they’re covered with vomit. This clue to his soul is just for starters.
Straight doctors are uncomfortable examining the private parts of a gay male’s body. They’re particularly uncomfortable anywhere near the rectum. I’ve already had to deal with a number of cases of rectal cancer because Dr. Farrell Obernought and his group of straight associates don’t go there as a matter of course, which they must, given what’s going on now. Dr. Lell even posted my memo about this in the PI network newsletter. All these straight docs won’t look up an asshole or even under a testicle. They don’t want to touch any private part of gay patients!
I’ve asked each of them, “What’s it like having pretty much an all-gay-male practice?” and “What’s it like when they come on to you?” Each blushed. “Why are you blushing?” I asked each and every one of them, which only made each do so, only more so. Give me the Jewish schmucks any day. “This is awful” is how the Jew docs are reacting as they reach for their stethoscopes, and I for one thank God for it. I brought this up at a meeting: “How are we supposed to deal with the fact that everything is so awful and you guys won’t lay a hand on your patients?” I brazenly asked. Silence. Finally everyone looked to Farrell, our new leader. “Um, well, I think we must not be there for that. Rise above it. We’re not their shrinks, for Christ’s sake.” Andy Goldstein from St. Louis General said, “Oh, come off it, Farrell. You sound like a fucking Nazi.” Andy Goldstein was removed as a PI and St. Louis was removed as an official site. No kidding. Just like that. Next time I saw Farrell I asked him what happened to Dr. Goldstein and St. Louis. He gave me a sharp look and walked on. Later he stopped me and said, “Don’t you think I am a compassionate man?” Okay, mister, I think to myself, if that’s what that brain of yours is stewing on. “No,” I answered. “I think most straight docs have trouble dealing with gay patients.” He gave me another of those sharp looks. “You put it right out there, don’t you?” “You bet,” I answered. “And any time you want to get me transferred out like Andy Goldstein, be my guest.”
Then I said to him: “I don’t trust doctors who are cold as ice.”
Then I said to him: “I don’t trust doctors who treat nurses like servants.”
Then I said to him: “You don’t like gays, do you?”
“It’s about time the fairies got their due, don’t you think? They’re certainly making a mess of my city.”
I relayed every word of this to Jerry and Daniel.
I was of course reassigned back to Jerry. He showed me what Dr. Farrell Obernought had placed in my permanent record:
“Boy, she was one troublemaking bitch. Why she had it out for me I have no idea. I never said the things she said I said. It just gave me, fast and up front and right away, a taste of the kind of attitudes I was going to have to deal with.”
PICTURES FROM AN EXHIBITION
FRED: Doc Stiles of UCLA Medical Center has a nervous breakdown. M.D. breakdowns are happening all over the place. Emma Brookner’s cry of “I’m smart, goddammit, smart as they come, and I can’t make these guys well!” is increasingly heard.
Stiles is truly convinced he’s really found the cure. He’s cried for his dead ones. He cradles his near-dead ones. He nourishes his still-living ones in any way he can. He took care of me when I was out there with Adreena. I really like him.
PetruV. No one knows where it comes from, but there it is, with endorsements from credible doctors and patients who are taking it. My friend Marty in San Francisco said it is worth a try, and Marty is someone I and everyone respect a lot. Guys who are taking it are okay, which in and of itself is an endorsement of sorts. I even make an announcement about it myself, which I shouldn’t, in some appearance I make somewhere. I speak out in favor of giving PetruV a chance. I get a lot of shit for doing this. But guys need hope. Desperation makes for great hungers (mine included). But one patient dies, Gus Vamusky, in Marty’s group as a matter of fact. News of this one death hits the gay papers and before you know it Velma Dimley is writing a blistering attack on Marty and me for not dumping on this “wretched unproven compound that has led to death.” Interesting to note how some people, like Velma, are so quick to jump on one single death in a patient whose body was already falling apart from a dozen different OIs and blame it on an untested drug that might indeed be useful. Kipper Gross is reputed to be on it. He’s looked so awful for so long, people think he’s not long for this world, and now he’s looking healthy.
I wonder how Purpura found out Junior was on it and on Vetch’s Neutralitron. Rumor has it that PetruV was Stiles’s stuff. And that Jerry had crapped all over it. Which he did. And whoever told Purpura, she killed it, getting FADS to declare it a federal offense to touch it. We’ll never know if it’s any good, except that Junior’s still alive.
Whatever Stiles’s “cure” is, he needs money for it and he’s a reputable doc. But no one will fund him because he won’t reveal what his cure is. He then starts standing outside various locales in Los Angeles with a tin cup, begging for contributions, “for my cure for UC. I’ve found the cure for UC. Don’t you want a cure for UC?” Then he just disappears.
Some people still taking PetruV are fine. It’s made of lots of harmless herbs and plants. Hog Hooker would have recognized most of their names. He grew most of them in his garden in Ontuit.
After about six mon
ths Doc Stiles reappears back in town, reopens his office, and carries on quietly.
* * *
DANIEL: Omicidio’s face graces the front page of The Prick, again. Orvid doesn’t give him the Nazi treatment this time but the photo makes him look twelve years old and very bewildered. He’s headlined “This Little Piggy.” Jerry has gone on record as in favor of Dodo’s test. I want to choke him. Dodo is only paying any attention to clearing his name of the growing number of charges Dingus continues to rack up against him. So his test is not THE TEST we need, are waiting for, and for which we will now be required to wait at least another year or two. Or three. I literally beg Jerry to put some pressure on Dodo. Then in unison he and I both answer, “It’s not my department.”