The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart

by Larry Kramer

  Most people think that tropical medicine, under which rubric plagues are often grouped for intensive study, is about anything unhealthy you bring back from a foreign shore while on holiday. No, tropical medicine concerns itself with the bringing back from there of something—invariably troublesome—that’s indigenous to there and doesn’t belong here. Rather like illegal immigrants. But it has to come from there. It has to originate there. Someplace other than here. It’s a most discriminatory definition, I know: having a special branch just for exotic illegal immigrants is rather dismissive of those legal immigrants at home in Hove. But that’s the British for you. If they’d all wanted to stay in Hove they would have stayed in Hove.

  And then, of course, once it’s been brought back here, what do you do with it? How do you care for it, make it better, cure it even, dispose of it if it’s going to be intractable, or worse, deal with it if it’s ineradicable? In other words, how do you stop it from spreading? That’s the hardest part of all and the part we’re all so bad at, even we Brits.

  And now we have another plague, The Underlying Condition, of which so much one day will be made and so little, yet again, is known. Where did this one come from? Is there a soupçon of Lisbon-outside-the-walls mixed in with a few drops of the river Debbo? Can its dots be connected back to earlier American plagues?

  And has anything from over there ever made it over here?

  And if it hasn’t, why hasn’t it?

  And if it has, what is it?

  And the reverse: Did anything from here make it over there? Only to be brought back here in return?

  With the exception of Bosco and Grace and Drs. Israel Jerusalem and yours truly, why are so few people of prominence studying any of this? Oh, there are a few but they are so inferior.

  How do we know there was anything in existence in America so long ago?

  I answer: Because if we had them over there you had them over here.

  People. Not monkeys. People.

  And if we did, how much of what we had became what you had?

  Where are those ancient people? Where are their voices? Where are your early people who can write? Why is it only Britain and the Continent that produce entities who pass on information to their future? We have Chronicles from every direction—Anglo-Saxon, French Moribute, Belgian Krechters, Spanish Infitadas, Italian Gothers, Scandinavian Orthods—that never-endingly tell us volumes of what went on long before the birth of Christ. There may not yet have been nationalities called by these precise names, but on the other side of the Atlantic we had divisions of voice and accent long before the first year of the Christian era. You cannot even rouse much of a peep over here before the fifteenth century. What happened to the Voices of America: the voices of those Kennewicks, those Clovises, those Folsoms, those Jomons, those Hopewells, to throw out just a few? How were they silenced so completely? How could you have lost so many people? For they were indeed lost, not nonexistent. Why are you so perennially incurious?!

  Life flourished on your continent long before it flourished on mine! Where is the American domination in archaeology, in linguistics? You have bones so ancient they make Stonehenge appear a modern miracle. Mammoth bones in the Yukon 28,000 years ago. Mammal bones in Colorado 17,000 years ago. Tools in Wisconsin mud lakes 17,000 years ago. Basketry in Pennsylvania 17,500 years ago. Blades from Virginia 19,000 years ago. Tools in South Carolina, stakes and carved shells in Florida, stone tools in Florida and Missouri. Human bones in Nebraska 22,000 years ago. Human hair in New Mexico … The list is endless and rapidly accumulating. Did these people not speak? Somewhere along the way there must have been, and be still, records of their deeds and thoughts. Somewhere in your earth, deep in your dirt, deep in your heart, there must be emblematic reservoirs of human deeds and thoughts and strivings from all of these eras.

  Where is this heart of yours?

  Where is it?

  These voices remain silenced.

  What was it that quieted them?

  Plague was plague before America was America. Is that why no one here gives what Dr. Sister Grace calls a hartz? Like Jesus’ birth, must your own be deemed immaculate? If you discover even earlier Indians, will more clamoring descendants crop up to claim your cornfields for craps tables? Why are you so uninterested in America before it was America? America was here before America was here and you are dumb Dickies if you don’t accept and understand that. Listen to Bosco. Listen to Grace. Listen to Israel. Listen to Hermia. We are all crazy as loons and hate each other’s guts, but at least on this point we agree. You and all you came from and stand for and will pass on to the future have been here much longer than you think.

  Oh my, there’s Ianthe pressing the life out of my doorbell. She’s taking me on her Founders’ Pass to see our Tate Turners on loan to your Mellon.

  But rest assured, Frederick. I shall resume anon.

  HOW FRED CAME TO KNOW DR. SISTER GRACE HOOKER

  Another double-barreled female dynamo Fred sought is Dr. Sister Grace Hooker, whom he also cherishes. She was, in fact, his childhood babysitter. She is, in fact, as well as in coincidence, a distant cousin of Dame Lady Hermia’s.

  Dr. Sister Grace Hooker claims, nay guards, her position as “still one of the world’s most eminent experts in Infectious Diseases” (Time, Oct. 3, 1987; New England Journal of Infectious Diseases, March 19, 1997).

  She grew up, as did Fred, in Masturbov Gardens, a large garden-apartment development just outside of Washington, D.C. Her parents were dead. She lived on family money but she was not yet rich. She lived alone. She was fourteen when they died in what was said to be an automobile accident; in fact they committed suicide by taking poison and driving over a low cliff in Masturbov Park. Because Grace looked older than her fourteen years and was especially self-sufficient, and did not want to move until she finished Lord of Mercy High School, no one said anything about her single occupancy. Various relatives and lawyer types came and went and vouched for her. There, in Masturbov Gardens, she (and Fred) knew many who would come to be key players in the plague of The Underlying Condition. She knew the twins, Daniel and David Jerusalem. She knew Dr. Dodo Geiseric and did not trust him from the beginning. She knew nasty Arnold Botts and never trusted him either. She was fat and jolly and let everyone pull her pigtails. The kids called her Pudgy Waffle. When they were twelve or thirteen she traded Fred a dim photograph of somebody’s erect penis for four Tootsie Rolls, which tells you how little use she had for a penis, even then, and how much Fred did. After she came into the first portion of what would become her great inheritance, her share of Massachusetts Waste Company (renamed First Boston Industries), she moved away from Masturbov Gardens, and the next time any of the gang heard about her she’d become a famous doctor, a great and world-renowned scientist, and a nun. Everyone thought it a big waste, having all that money and not spending it. Somewhere along the years she lost her left arm.

  Dr. Sister Grace Hooker discovered Vel, which brought her an additional great fortune. She has won, among other honors, three Radichers, two Venslaws, and yes, one Nobel, for Vel. She is extremely protective of her work, carefully surveying scientific journals on guard against outright pilferage—or just tiny spots of unacknowledged borrowing. “I do not trust scientists because I am one.” Before this plague of The Underlying Condition is over, she, with Dr. Israel Jerusalem, will win another Nobel, although Israel will be in prison when this happens.

  Mater Nostra Dolorosa Medical Center in the Northeast quadrant of Washington maintains, barely, its fame and nobility because of Dr. Sister Grace, thus helping to keep the deteriorating neighborhood more or less safe. This once-great institution where Ferva taught, where DeMillie discovered radium struts, where seven Nobels were claimed by long-forgotten names, and which has been blessed by four popes, approaches collapse. It really should be torn down, but the diocese, the hospital, and the city can’t afford to do it. The Sisters of Most Pious Sequentia are, of all orders, the one that has always trafficked in the greatest a
dversities—though Grace wants everyone to know “I am a shitty fucking awful nun.”

  Her habit hides her age. “Let’s just say I’m as old as my fucking country,” she roars. She has the mouth of a sailor. No, she has a mouth worse than any sailor’s.

  Her own great work, also extensively utilized around the world, and into its umpteenth edition, is Science, Medicine, and History.

  COINCIDENCE?

  It may seem wildly coincidental that Fred Lemish’s childhood babysitter and a chum from London should not only be cousins but both become so instrumental in helping him sort out this plague, but there you have it.

  Indeed, Fred has often reflected on the uncanny intersection of his life with so many of those now in a position to affect the course of The UC. There you have that, as well.

  THE CAUSE AS ENUNCIATED BY THAT OTHER “BIGGEST MOUTH OF THE MOMENT,” DR. SISTER GRACE HOOKER

  Amoebas, piss, and shit. The Big Three. And taking it up the ass. The Four Horsemen. That’s what this shit’s all about, Freddie. It’s as all-American as fucking apple pie.

  No one knows whether to call me Sister Grace or Dr. Grace or Sister Dr. Grace or Dr. Sister Grace. No one’s ever sure, which is the way I like it. And God hasn’t confided in me which He prefers, which is the way I like it too. There’s something about absolute certainty that closes off real communion. But you can call me Pudgy Waffle, Freddie, just like you used to do.

  No, I don’t want to go back. Not so many old farts say that, do they? It was butt rot then and it’s worse now, so the present needs us more than the past. There’s more than enough fucking disease to keep us up to the fucking minute and occupied for life.

  Everything I discovered, about life, about me, I discovered in this ancient hive of cloistered cells I live and work in, here, in poopy Mater Nostra. No, that’s a lie. I learned a lot before I got here that made me come to live here. But it’s been here that I’ve had the peace to dream and achieve. Beakers and Bunsen burners? Now I have falangers and mefits and conconritons. Some of my instruments are older than I am. I have an original Krusti, for instance, which only has a half-inch spitz, which I still use. They all work. They’ve had to rewire twice to bring me enough electricity. I may have them rewire again so I can get into whatever’s next. They never dare deny me anything. I make them too much money. Sister Perfervid Auchincloss’s trust fund has dried up. I’m the only rich nun they have left.

  Yes, disease is singular. It’s all one disease. There hasn’t been a single second of history when we haven’t all been capable of killing each other.

  I don’t agree with that flea-bitten, tick-infested honking fuckface Bosco Dripper, with his obsession that it’s only fucking chimps that’s caused this. You listen to Bosco and you want to slit your wrists. Him and his fucking goddamn monkeys are too depressing and full of crap.

  I try to ransack and learn from the past as much as Bosco does, as much as my dyspeptic dame of a cousin does, but I don’t pander to it. I don’t hate so many people. Well, maybe I do. It really is all about saving lives, you know. That often requires hating a person or two. I admit it. Shit, I glory in it!

  As for Lady Buttinsky, I’m the important one in this particular family on either side of the ocean. What has she discovered to save a single person? Lifesavingwise, her past doesn’t amount to what she would call a tinker’s damn. If she won a Radicher or a Nobel I might listen to her. But I probably wouldn’t. No prize is worth the piddling lead it’s poured from, and certainly no prize is worth enough to listen to Lady Fart Catcher. God knows what she’ll try to fatten you up with like a fucking Strasbourg duck.

  The history of science is not like the history of history. History’s too interested in why and science is too interested in what. But consequences are as important as causes. A plague that kills a billion people is a consequence far more troublesome to deal with than looking for some ancient pussy that might have started it all and even if it did, so wanking what? Knowing it isn’t going to cure those billion people. Knowing the origin of something is a tool-wanking dead-end waste of time. The door’s shut by then. And because people are incurably dumb fucks they are not going to stop doing whatever they’re doing that gets them into trouble in the first place just because you tell them what’s killing them. Shit, they already know, down deep, and do it anyway. They don’t care enough. There, in a nutshell, is the cause of almost all the crap since the beginning of Bosco’s baby-chimp twat-chewing long-ago. Not caring enough. And what the fucking, pissing hell can you do with that? Monkeys then and since don’t care.

  There isn’t ever really any beginning, if you want to be philosophically accurate about it. Each day is a new day, forever and ever and ever.

  That is not to say there is no cause, no first thing, no First Frigging Principle.

  But it is to say that our constant obsession with Fucking Firsts isn’t always practical. Or profitable. Or accurate. One day one thing is the cause of a plague and the next day either it isn’t or something’s joined it. Or taken its place. Which is either worse or better.

  And since everything did start a cocksucking long time ago, it’s unreasonable to ask this new world to have saved all its pieces of old string and rusty nails so some old English auntie can rant on about plagues. Who gives a rat’s ass about her rats’ kaka? Today’s fact may be yesterday’s memory, but it’s almost always tomorrow’s mistake. Now, that is flowery, but it’s true.

  You may think I’m just profane, an old crone, an old nun, an old Puritan, an old American, an old bitch, an old slut, and yes an old dyke.

  You wouldn’t be wrong. But you wouldn’t be right.

  Now back to taking it up the ass. Dr. Sister Grace is going to tell you more than you want to know about the history of anal intercourse. I tell all my students who are squeamish they are just going to have to get used to the frank language of bodily functions if they want to study with me. All bodily functions. English is a very specific and fucking fantastic language and you have to respect that and try to meet it more than halfway. And listen to what it’s telling you.

  It’s thought that America’s belief system started with Pilgrims and Puritans—they’re not the same, by the way; everyone uses these names so interchangeably and they shouldn’t—but they weren’t the first marauders of our land and souls, not by a long shot. The Spanish were here long before the English or the Dutch, and they were Catholics. I’m here to tell you Catholics, and especially Spanish Catholics, are shit-fire big-time killers. Columbus’s journey coincided with the Spanish Inquisition, where those spics killed all the Jews in sight and an awful lot who weren’t. The Spanish fucking hated Jews. You wonder why everyone goes on so just about Hitler. He’s just another example of what I mean when I say, and say, and say again, there is never really any beginning. The Spanish had been over here and murdered half of South America and Mexico and every tribe of Indian they could find ages before there was any Germany. Good thing the Spanish disappeared. Not much interest as to why they disappeared. But they came back. Nothing so awfully shitty ever really goes away.

  The early American Catholic Church bears little resemblance to today’s. Back then, since it was a lot closer to his time on earth, Jesus Christ was a different force. He was more, how should I put it, suspect. The embracing of Jesus is so totally a modern contrition. I’m not certain anyone has a good answer as to why and how the hated and hateful early godawful Catholic Church ever got a foothold in America that lasted. They probably bought it. That’s how anybody usually gets anything. One of these days they’re going to run out of money and an awful lot of men will have much too much free time on their hands. Dangerous, free time on your hands. You can only jerk off so often.

  The two Catholic saints most popular in early America that you’ve never heard of?

  Repolto Verginnis. Stupid fartface. He was canonized in the seventeenth century for helping to rid church properties of lust. Extremely practical. He preached that sleeping in a bed without a board down
the middle separating husband and wife was a mortal sin. Every man and woman who lived in a building with four walls prayed to St. Repolto at least four times a day or their children would be born with genital warts. Genital warts, which were so prevalent they were believed to be part of the penis or vagina. Repolto is a good example of a saint canonized for reasons still embargoed by the Vatican. I’d say he sucked a lot of dicks. Those fellows always look after each other. Still do, of course.

  St. Fragista. One tough piece of nookie. She became a nun because she hated men. Fair enough. So do I. She figured she had a twatload of potential members for an order, so she started one. The Fragistae were one of the biggest orders in the Middle Ages. I am talking about tens of thousands of women, all over the then-known world. There has not been a single book written about them, or her, scholarly or otherwise. Their withdrawal from the mainstream affected birthrates all over the place. The Fragistae believed in something they called, even then, the Total Woman. Mulieris de tantae originae, or some such. They sanctioned a great deal of affection between women, maybe even, I’ll bet my habit, the Total Act. That’s where the expression “the laying on of hands” is said to have come from. Women were slaves, indentured to husbands and marriage for survival. No wonder so many women flocked to join. Here were armies of women determined to exert control over their own lives, their own bodies, their own existence, removed from men, with only Christ to declare their love to. Very safe, the love of Christ. The popularity of the Fragistae was so enormous that Rome smelled a big cunty problem and got all those rules written into Catholicism Central that still exclude our ordination. You can also bet a lot of pressure was brought to bear by all those abandoned husbands who wanted Tante Mulieris back home to screw, St. Fragista notwithstanding. The order suddenly disappears around 1500. There are not a few conspiracy theories as to why. The two most persistent are that a sexual disease they transmitted to each other did them in from all their pussy licking, and/or that the Church had them all exterminated in a major witch hunt. Nelly popes do ballsy things like that all the time. No end of suddenly appearing Bibles ever clears the fucking air. Do I say “fucking” too much? I have been trying to expand my profane repertoire. It’s been a long hard fucking road from there to here. As you can see, I am always getting fucking waylaid. My students love it.