The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays

by Kramer, Larry

  (BEN stands in the Eden Heights apartment, smoking a cigar. Scattered cartons and packing crates.)

  NED: Did you ever think you’d spend one more night in Eden Heights?

  BEN: I consider it one of the greatest achievements of my life that I got out of here alive.

  NED: Don’t you ever stop and think how far we’ve come?

  BEN: No. Never.

  (RENA is on the phone. She is now almost ninety. BEN sits in a chair and reads a business magazine.)

  RENA: (Loudly.) I’m coming home! I’ll be there tomorrow! Back with all you dear chums I’ve loved since childhood! I can hardly wait! (Hangs up.) The woman’s deaf. Paula’s deaf and Nettie’s moved to an old people’s kibbutz in Israel and Belle is blind and Lydia’s dead. Belle’s husband brought you both into this world. Lydia introduced me to Richard. She didn’t want him. (Starts rummaging in a carton.) All our past—in one battered carton from the Safeway. Aah, I’m going to throw it all away.

  NED: No, I want it. It’s our history.

  RENA: Some history. So you can dredge up more unhappy memories to tell a psychiatrist how much you hated your father.

  NED: (To BEN.) Don’t you want to take anything for a memento?

  BEN: You’re the family historian. I leave the past to you.

  NED: Your West Point letters, your yearbooks. . .

  BEN: I’ve burned the mortgage. You’re the one with the passion for remembering.

  NED: Is that the way we handle it? I remember and you don’t?

  BEN: Maybe so. Maybe you’ve hit the nail on the head, young brother.

  RENA: (Comes across RICHARD’s watch chain.) He was Phi Beta Kappa and Law Journal. He majored in Greek and Latin. They didn’t let many Jews into Yale in those days. You would have thought he’d have done better.

  NED: Both brothers such failures. Uncle Leon wound up broke, hanging around the Yale Club trying to bum loans off old Yalies. I could never understand why you paid for his funeral.

  BEN: He wasn’t such a bad guy.

  RENA: Aunt Judith threw him out when she discovered all his bimbos.

  BEN: Some old judge I met told me, “If only Leon had been castrated instead of circumcised, he’d have wound up on the Supreme Court.”

  RENA: I’ve lived in this room for over fifty years. We moved down here on a three-month temporary job. Some man had almost burned to death and they needed a new one fast. The poor chap died and the job was Richard’s. (Comes across the navy blue crocheted purse and pulls out the letters and tries to read them.)

  NED: Ah, the famous letters. (Knows them by heart.) “I find my schedule will perhaps bring me into the vicinity of New York on 4th May; might you be available for luncheon?”

  RENA: That was at Delmonico’s.

  NED: “I find I must reschedule; will you be available instead on the 10th inst.?” “It now appears the 10th must be replaced by the 20th and even this is not firm.” Why did I think they were so romantic?

  RENA: They were romantic. They are romantic.

  NED: Maybe you’ll meet another man at the home.

  RENA: It’s called an adult residence. I don’t want to meet another man. One was enough. I always thought Richard was inadequate. I just never had the guts to really leave him. It’s no great crime to choose security over passion. My grand passion was the two of you. (To BEN.) You have the wonderful wife and the wonderful marriage and have given me my wonderful grandchildren. (To NED.) You have the artistic talent, which you inherited from me. Hurry up and write whatever it is you’re going to write about me so I can get through all the pain it’ll no doubt cause me.

  NED: Why do you automatically assume it will be painful?

  RENA: Knowing you it will be. I want to show you something. (Goes into her bedroom.)

  BEN: We can’t die. We’re indestructible. We have her genes inside us. Sara called. Timmy has to have an operation. But then it should he fine. His bleeding will stop. Finally. All these years we blamed ourselves. It wasn’t bad parenting. It wasn’t psychosomatic. It was genetic. Ulcerated nerve ends, not dissimilar to what Richard must have had.

  NED: I’m glad. Genetic. That’s what they say now about homosexuality. In a few more minutes the Religious Right is going to turn violently Pro-Choice.

  BEN: Now if Betsy wouldn’t keep falling for all these wretched young men who treat her so terribly.

  NED: Yes, that’s a tough one.

  BEN: But I’ve found her the best therapist I could find.

  NED: Her very own first therapist.

  BEN: We learned how to attack problems and not be defeated by them. We found the tools to do this, probably by luck and the accident of history. Rena and Richard didn’t. For them it was more about missed opportunities. It was the wrong time for them and it hasn’t been for us.

  NED: For you.

  BEN: Ned, you’re not going to die. Tell Rena I’ll be here with the car in the morning at nine sharp.

  (RENA comes back dressed in the Russian peasant clothing.)

  NED: How did we get out of here alive?

  BEN: A lot of expensive therapy. (Sneaks out.)

  RENA: I wore this when I got off the boat from Russia.

  NED: You were two years old when you got off the boat from Russia. (Pause.) I wore it, too.

  RENA: You never wore this.

  NED: Daddy beat me up for it.

  RENA: Oh, he did not. He never laid a finger on you. How can you say such an awful thing? How about giving us one tiny little bit of credit while I’m still alive.

  NED: Mom. . . aren’t you afraid of dying?

  (HANNIMAN comes in to take a sample of NED’s blood.)

  RENA: Of course I’m frightened. Who isn’t? What time is it? My friends are throwing me a farewell party. I see your brother left without saying good-bye. It’s as if he’s punishing me. He thinks I never notice. You think I don’t know how you both treat me with such disdain? So many of my friends have kids who never see them at all. So I guess I must consider myself fortunate. You’ll never guess what happened. I called Drew Keenlymore! He’s listed in Vancouver. His very first words to me were, “My dear, I called every Weeks in the New York directory trying to find you.” He tried to find me. He tried to find me. (Re: HANNIMAN.) What is she doing?

  NED: A blood test.

  RENA: Is my son going to be all right?

  NED: My mother, Mrs. Weeks. Nurse Hanniman.

  HANNIMAN: What a kind, pleasant, thoughtful, considerate son you have. I’m so enjoying taking care of him.

  NED: Nurse Hanniman and I enjoy a rare bonding.

  (HANNIMAN leaves.)

  Momma . . . you may outlive me.

  RENA: Don’t say that. My momma was ninety-five years old when she died. She was withered beyond recognition. She was in a crib, mewling, wetting her pants, not knowing anyone, and me trying not to vomit from the putrid smell of urine and her runny stools. She simply would not let go. This old people’s home had taken her every last cent for this tiny crib, for no nurse to come and wipe her. I wiped her. I came every day. I sat beside her. She didn’t know who I was. My own mother. I’ll bet you won’t do all that for me. People stick articles under my door. “Your son’s sick with that queer disease.” “I saw your pervert son on TV saying homosexuals are the same as everyone else.” Then, in our current events class we had a report on all the progress that’s been made and how much your activists had to do with it and all the women came over and congratulated me. I don’t know why, after ninety years, I’m surprised by anything.

  NED: There hasn’t been any progress.

  RENA: Of course there has. Alexander. . .

  NED: Yes, Momma?

  RENA: He’s dead. Drew Keenlymore is dead. I planned a trip to British Columbia, to Banff and Lake Louise, and I called to let him know I was going to be in the vicinity and he’s gone and died. I guess we couldn’t expect him to wait around for me forever, could we?

  NED: No, Momma. I’m sorry.

  RENA: Good-by
e, darling. It’s a long trip back. And I’m having trouble with my tooth. Every time I say good-bye I’m never sure I’m going to see you again. Give me a kiss.

  (They kiss. NED hugs her as best he can with his arms connected to the tubing.)

  NED: (As she begins to leave.) I wouldn’t be a writer if you guys hadn’t done what you did.

  RENA: Is that something else I’m meant to feel guilty for?

  NED: I love being a writer.

  RENA: At last.

  (RENA walks off, slowly, holding on to things. She is almost blind.

  HANNIMAN enters, with DR. DELLA VIDA, no longer in official uniform, and takes another blood test.)

  NED: Another one? Why am I having another one so quickly? What happened at the White house? What did he say?

  TONY: They’re cutting our budget.

  NED: Your buddy. Is it too pushy of me to inquire as to my and/or your progress?

  TONY: We have a fifty-fifty chance.

  NED: That’s your idea of progress?

  TONY: You’re not only pushy, you’re . . . how do your people say it—a kvetch? Just imagine this is the cure and you’re the first person getting it.

  NED: Can I also imagine the Republicans never being reelected?

  HANNIMAN: He’d never work again.

  TONY: Oh, I’ll find a way. (Leaves.)

  NED: Did the mouth of Weeks cause a little friction in the house of Della Vida?

  HANNIMAN: Congratulations. You’re my last patient.

  NED: Where are you going?

  HANNIMAN: To raise my baby. And be a pushy kvetch wife.

  NED: How come?

  HANNIMAN: It’s somebody else’s turn now. I think you can identify with that.

  NED: Good luck.

  HANNIMAN: You, too. Sweet dreams.

  (She turns out the lights and leaves.

  Darkness. NED is tossing and turning.)

  NED: (Screaming out.) Ben!

  BEN: (Lying on a cot next to him.) I’m here, Ned.

  NED: Ben?

  BEN: Yes, Ned.

  NED: I’m scared.

  BEN: It’s all right. Go to sleep.

  NED: Ben, I love you.

  BEN: I love you, too.

  NED: I can’t say it enough. It’s funny, but life is very precious now.

  BEN: Why’s it funny? I understand, and it is for me, too. A colleague of mine with terminal cancer went into his bathroom last week and blew his brains out with a shotgun.

  (Dawn is breaking outside. BEN gets up. He throws some cold water on his face at the sink.)

  NED: Hey, cheer me up, Lemon.

  BEN: They haven’t struck us out yet.

  NED: What if this doesn’t work?

  BEN: It’s going to work. (Sits beside him on bed.)

  NED: Even if it does, it will only work for a while.

  BEN: Then we’ll worry about it in a while.

  NED: You’ve certainly spent a great deal of your life trying to keep me alive, and I’ve been so much trouble, always trying to kill myself, asking your advice on every breath I take, putting you to the test endlessly.

  BEN: I beat you up once.

  NED: You beat me up? When?

  BEN: We were kids. I was trying to teach you how to tackle in football. You were fast, quick. I thought you could be a quarterback. And you wouldn’t do it right. You didn’t want to learn. It was just perversity on your part. So I decided to teach you a lesson. I blocked you and blocked you, as hard as I could, much harder than I had to. And then I tackled you, and you’d get up and I’d tackle you again, harder. You just kept getting up for more. I beat you up real bad.

  NED: I don’t remember any of that. Now why did you go and do all that?

  BEN: A thousand reasons and who knows?

  NED: I don’t want to he cremated. I want to be buried, with a tombstone, so people can come and find me and visit. Do you want to be buried or cremated?

  BEN: Neither.

  NED: What will they do with you?

  BEN: I don’t care.

  NED: How can you not care?

  BEN: I won’t be here.

  NED: You don’t want people to remember you?

  BEN: I’ve never thought about it.

  NED: It seems like I’ve spent my whole life thinking about it. How can you never have thought about it?

  BEN: I never thought about it.

  NED: Well, think about it.

  BEN: I don’t want to think about it.

  NED: I just thought we could be buried side by side.

  BEN: Please, Ned. You’re not go—

  NED: I’ve picked out the cemetery. It’s a pretty place. George Balanchine is buried there. I danced around his grave. When no one could see me.

  BEN: Are we finished with the morbid part of this conversation?

  NED: No. I want my name on something. A building. At Yale, for gay students, or in New York. Will you look after that for me?

  BEN: You’ll have many years to arrange all that yourself.

  NED: But you’re my lawyer!

  BEN: Everything will be taken care of.

  NED: Then, the rest of my money, you give to the kids and Sara, please give something special to Sara. You married her and you didn’t even love her. And you grew to love her. I’m sorry I never really had that. For very long.

  BEN: I want you to know. . . I want you to know. . . I’m proud you’ve stood up for what you’ve believed in. I’ve even been a little jealous of all the attention you’ve received. I think to myself that if I’d gone off on my own instead of built the firm, I could have taken up some cause and done it better than you. But I didn’t do that and you have and I admire you for that.

  NED: I guess you could have lived without me. I never could have lived without you. Go back to your hotel.

  BEN: I’ll see you tomorrow.

  (Lights up. DR. DELLA VIDA enters, carrying a long computer printout. He turns off the computer and then the Ex-Cell-Aerator.)

  NED: The results are in. May I have the winning envelope, please?

  TONY: I don’t know how much more we can take. Your hoodlums infiltrated my hospital. They destroyed my entire laboratory. (Throwing him the printout.)

  NED: I guess they want you to admit you don’t know what the fuck’s going on and go back to the drawing board. I’m worse? I’m worse!

  TONY: Yes.

  NED: What are you going to do?

  TONY: There’s nothing I can do.

  NED: What do you mean there’s nothing you can do? You gave me the fucking stuff! You must have considered such a possibility! You must have some emergency measures!

  TONY: Oh, shut up! I am sick to death of you, your mouth, your offspring! You think changing Presidents will change anything? Will make any difference? The system will always he here. The system doesn’t change. No matter who’s President. It doesn’t make any difference who’s President! You’re scared of dying? Let me tell you the facts of life: it isn’t easy to die: you don’t die until you have tubes in every single possible opening and orifice and vent and passage and outlet and hole and slit in your ungrateful body. Why, it can take years and years to die. It’s much worse than you can even imagine. You haven’t suffered nearly enough. (Leaves.)

  NED: (Pulls the tubes from his arms. Blood spurts out. Gets out of bed.) What do you do when you’re dying from a disease you need not be dying from? What do you do when the only system set up to save you is a pile of shit run by idiots and quacks? (Yanks the tubes violently out of the wall apparatus, causing blood to gush out. Then pulls out the six bags of blood, smashing them, one by one, against the walls and floor, to punctuate the next speech.)

  My straight friends ask me over and over and over again: why is it so hard for you to find love? Ah, that is the question, answered, I hope, for you tonight. Why do I never stop believing this fucking plague can he cured!

  ALEXANDER: (Appearing in the bath towels he was first seen in.) What’s going to happen to me?

  NED: You’r
e going to go to eleven shrinks. You won’t fall in love for forty years. And when a nice man finally comes along and tries to teach you to love him and love yourself, he dies from a plague. Which is waiting to kill you, too.

  ALEXANDER: I’m sorry I asked. Do I learn anything?

  NED: Does it make any sense, a life? (Singing.) “Only make believe I love you . . .”

  ALEXANDER: (Singing.) “Only make believe that you love me . . .”

  NED: When Felix was offered the morphine drip for the first time in the hospital, I asked him, “Do you want it now or later?” Felix somehow found the strength to answer back, “I want to stay a little longer.”

  NED and ALEXANDER: “Might as well make believe I love you . . .”

  NED: “For to tell the truth . . .”

  NED and

  ALEXANDER: “I do.”

  NED: I want to stay a little longer.

  THE END

  Credits

  A portion of Bertolt Brecht’s poem “And I Always Thought,” used in Tony Kushner’s Foreword is from Poems 1913-1956, translated by Michael Hamburger, Copyright © 1976 by Methuen. Used by permission of the publisher.

  Portion of “September 1, 1939,” copyright © 1940 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted from The English Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson, by permission of Random House, Inc.

  “Stouthearted Men” music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; “Where’s the Mate for Me?” and “Make Believe” from Show Boat, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; “This Nearly Was Mine” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” from South Pacific, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II: Used by special arrangement with The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, 1633 Broadway, Suite 3801, New York, NY 10019.

  “Blue Skies” music and lynics by Irving Berlin: Used by special arrangement with The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, on behalf of Irving Berlin Music Company, 1633 Broadway, Suite 3801, New York, NY 10019.

  “Don’t Fence Me In” music and lyrics by Cole Porter; “Victory Polka” music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Calm; “Somewhere” music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim: By arrangement with Warner Chappell Music Company, Inc., 10585 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90250–4950.

  “Rum and Coca-Cola” by Al Stillman, Jeri Sullivan, Morey Amsterdam, and Paul Baron. Copyright © 1944, 1956. Renewed 1972. EMI Feist Catalogue. World Print Rights controlled by CPP/Belwin, Inc., P.O. Box 4340, Miami, FL 33014.