The American People, Volume 2

by Larry Kramer

  The cause of death is listed as UC (it could just as easily have been listed as childbirth) on a chart signed by the Montezuma joke doctor, one E. A. Poe, a name used by any and all when no one wants to take the rap and/or no one knows who the hell the deceased is and/or how in hell to find out (this happens a lot at Montezuma, where patients just show up without ID, without money, not speaking English, with nada but their dying bodies), and ordinarily that would be the end of that. Senorita goes steerage to the morgue, and the infected twins, lucky girls, get to go and join a few hundred other foundering foundlings in the subbasement of Building G, all fighting for the same stingy tin cup of the milk of human kindness that might keep them alive past tomorrow.

  Donny Privvy, a born-again, and also a member of the President’s Committee for the Forging of Family Values (FFV), notices while perusing her file that the mother was not married. He hates it that our government’s money is used to help these people. He notices that the admitting doctor was a Harry Straddler. Why is he even letting these people in the door? When Donny asks for some kind of explanation, he’s informed by the chief nurse, a Ten-ton Tessie who happens to be male and still makes passes at me, that if he bothered to hang around here for any length of time, he’d be told “Death by UC” for just about everything. Donny Privvy looks at Senator Perz. “If she hadn’t had UC, those poor five babies would be alive today.”

  Senator Perz, of course, is from Florida, where he represents a lot of Cubans. The Hispanic ladies cluck their hypocritical agreement: every one of them has at least six UC deaths among their own familia but no one is talking plain English.

  The Dr. E. A. Poe who’d just signed the death certificate was a staff pathologist who did his training in mainland China and pretends not to speak much English because it’s safer that way (and who was once my student). He is routinely wearing rubber gloves, which make it harder for him to fill out the forms, but fill them out he did, putting in UC as the cause of death over the signature “E. A. Poe, M.D.” Having written down the truth, and hating himself for it, Dr. Poe wants out as fast as possible. In fact, Dr. Poe is so nervous, with Donnston and Perz and the Hispanic harpies, masked and gowned as they all are, breathing down his neck, that rushing off he accidentally kicks over the pail with the stillborn triplets (I told you this place was awful) and they spill over the floor and onto one of the committeewomen’s open-toed pumps. She screams, then vomits, then shakes convulsively, emitting incomprehensible curses in torrential shrieks that are presumably meant to scare away the evil spirit and that reverberate down the long corridors so piercingly that all the Hispanic staff and patients on the floor rush into the corridor, crossing themselves in terror. Confronted by such an audience and having stepped out of her vomit-encrusted shoes, she stands tall as best she can and demands, in the name of all her people, action, recompense, and vengeance, though she would be hard-pressed to tell you what she considers the crime. She then threatens to call Manute Zapata Geraldo, the host of a Spanish-language afternoon talk show, who specializes in stories about dead babies of color spilling out of white men’s baskets.

  Privvy rushes back to UC Central and calls his new buddy, some new assistant surgeon general, that woman whose name no one ever can remember except that she’s Hispanic too, and when she speaks in public, which her handlers try to prevent, she sounds like Carmen Miranda (if anyone remembers Carmen Miranda). She then immediately gets on her intercom to the nearest secretary of something (another incompetent idiot also with a name no one remembers, but who is unfortunately—in that it makes it impossible to criticize him without being called a racist—black), who brings it up at the daily cabinet meeting, which I’ve been monitoring.

  President Trish is late, so an assistant secretary of defense, who once served under Ruester, regales everyone with anecdotes about how Peter would often spend entire cabinet meetings dispensing anecdotes about every TV episode he ever starred in that dealt with childbirth, replete with details of what was used for fake blood and birthing babies. Over the years this ran the gamut from diluted raspberry jam, seeded so it looked like bits of flesh, to watered-down ketchup, used in conjunction with everything from baby dolls to kitty cats in infant costumes. Peter told a particularly juicy story about some actress, most desirous of winning an Emmy, who stuffed a live kitten into a rubber baby and then inserted all this into her particularly wide vagina to “make it look real.” “And she won her Emmy!” the Ruester would howl and cackle, slapping his huge gnarled palm down on a cabinet table that was once touched by the likes of Lincoln. It’s evidently still a favorite story heard around here. Trish arrives just as everyone is roaring with laughter about Peter. When he realizes he’s less loved, Dredd gets that icy-bitch look on his face like a weenie ignored in prep school circle jerk-offs after lights out who remembers it until he dies.

  “I’ve been told that a case of UC has gone unreported,” he says quietly.

  “And you are required by law to pay attention to this,” says his sinister creep of an assistant, Bart Shovels, to another assistant secretary of somewhere.

  “Attention must be paid,” says another asshole from HAH, an old theatergoer just rushing in.

  So Harry’s arrest and imprisonment are announced, complete with a picture from his medical school yearbook twenty years ago, and with a bold headline on page one that includes the words criminal and Fort Leavenworth, in both The Monument and The Federal Daily Posture. Suddenly doctors are calling each other all over the place. Can you believe this! Holy shit! I’m moving to Brazil. Stuff like that. Every UC doctor in town is guilty of the same thing. They all have unreported UC cases, drawers full of them, file boxes, enough unreported UC cases that, if shredded, would clog every toilet in the city. Often these cases are private cases, many of them well-known people—we’re talking major celebs and politicos—certainly more problematic to report than an impoverished woman in the charity ward of Montezuma, although Montezuma is more or less all charity ward. I recently did a grand rounds there. It’s truly close to hell.

  And that’s how Dr. Harry Straddler winds up in Leavenworth. I’ve discovered, when you get right down to it, that all stories in Washington are long, and just as innocuous on the surface and putrid underneath. Within two days (can’t the White House work fast when it wants to?), Harry has lost his staff position at Montezuma, his associate professorship of indigent medicine at G.W., and is transferred from the 27th precinct (near Montezuma) to the 207th precinct (near Denver), where he now awaits “a trial by his peers.” Like I was, Harry is a fucking PHS officer, which puts him not under the regular laws of our country but under those of our armed forces, which means Denver is one step toward the maximum: twenty years hard labor.

  Thea Template, now more conservative than Herbert Hoover, has long ago forgotten that (1) her father, Eugene, started The Monument to be the liberal conscience of this city; and (2) people often get caught up in tragic happenings beyond their control, as witness the suicide, in despair, of her own husband. So The Monument didn’t write about Harry Straddler being charged, Harry Straddler being imprisoned, Harry Straddler being court-martialed. Or Harry Straddler committing suicide. Or Harry Straddler leading to a possible national quarantine. Daniel says Thea was a member of the Jew Tank for a while. One day she stopped coming. The girls there broke the news. “Haven’t you heard, Thea’s become an Episcopalian.”

  But The Monument does report that the secretary of Health and Happiness goes on prime time and tells The American People that this “new” national health emergency requires stringent precautions of the most severe sort, and to this end Q-23.1 is only the first step in “bringing to justice those who bring disgrace and shame to the best health-care system in the free world.” Since someone had thoughtfully seen to it that a TV was installed in Harry’s cell, it was while watching this announcement that Harry checked himself out.

  As if to tie everything together without you noticing, Dredd also announced via Bart Shovels, and Thea did report, tha
t an additional bill was sent up to the Hill that can send you to prison for life for having unprotected sex. Dredd and Vurd and Bart and others think it’s important to nip this UC in the bud. Gay and FUQU activists somehow manage to get this law overruled, not knowing that Dredd’s got old CIA buddies at work to nip their own growing power in the bud (which is of special interest to Mother).

  An obituary appears in Government Workers Daily, including the suicide. I call Donnston Privvy. I’ve neglected to mention that he’d come to me years ago to “quietly” cure a bad case of the clap he claimed he’d picked up from some portable toilet on a top-secret assignment in some jungle, a popular excuse in Washington government circles. His wife and I had been on a community panel for making our neighborhood playgrounds safe, and she’d remarked to him what a “particularly sensitive” man she’d thought me to be. He came to me for quite a number of other jungle problems over the years. So much for fucking family values (FFV). For a weenie he had a huge wiener, and I was sort of glad he was sticking it in more places than a look at his face led you to believe.

  I called him.

  “Donny, why did you have to make such an example out of Harry Straddler?”

  “The president.”

  That’s a sentence in Washington. A verb or modifiers aren’t required.

  “And you’ll never guess what’s next.” Donnston talks like a prissy old lady.

  “What’s next?”

  Washington is filled with Privvys—old sucked-out sponges that you would swear are gay but aren’t, just repressed pulped tomatoes with caved-in cheeks and colorless hair and balls you just know are sweating. God knows what he does to women in bed. I can’t even imagine.

  “I’ve been asked by Representative Bob Barrett to commence a study, preparatory to his submitting a full recommendation, on”—he whispers the word—“quarantine.”

  “Quarantining whom for what?” I know what he’ll answer. Every UC doctor in America has been waiting for another reign of horror to descend.

  “UC doctors and UC cases and those who have come in contact with them.”

  “That sort of includes a growing chunk of the population of…”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Then I say it the way Peter Ruester and Dredd Trish always say it: “… of The American People.”

  “That’s going a bit too far.”

  “Isn’t it a wee bit late?”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “You got room for all of us somewhere?”

  “You don’t see … them?”

  “Donny, it’s a jungle out there.”

  He coughs.

  “You’ll have to test every person in America.”

  “The president.” He coughs again.

  “They’ll have to go through every doctor’s office and patient’s file in America.”

  He coughs yet again.

  “It will cost a fucking fortune.”

  He whispers. “The president.” He coughs again. In fact, he’s now wheezing.

  “Isn’t it a bit impractical to quarantine so many millions of people?”

  “The president.” The wheeze.

  “And expensive?”

  “The president.” The wheeze, followed by the cough.

  “Does everyone get their own private room?”

  “The president.” Ditto.

  “And bath? These guys need their own private bath.”

  “The president.” Ditto.

  “Or else they contage.”

  “The president.” Ditto, yet again. His whisper is now almost inaudible.

  “I’d watch that cough if I were you. Maybe you’d better come in for a checkup.”

  Thank God he finally hangs up.

  This story The Washington Monument does run. “PRESIDENT REQUESTS REPORT ON QUARANTINE POSSIBILITY.” Every doctor’s suddenly got the runs. Passports everywhere are checked, as are liquid assets. Countries are double-checked to see if they still let Americans in. And The Monument says more than half of D.C. doctors have never seen a UC case. Thea, baby, listen up: Every doctor has seen UC. Even yours. Even your dead husband’s.

  Have you registered all this, Fred?

  Mother told me he was very pleased with this information. He asked me, “What do you think this is all the cover-up for? Who are the persons moving the pawns? Find out and let me know.”

  EXECUTION OF A MURDERER

  I murder him. My luck, he’s in the men’s room in Punic Center. I realize the outside foyers are empty. Even the guards went into the main hall. Everyone is rushing to get seats to listen to Dye’s replacement. I realize there’s no one in here with us.

  I come and pretend to pee in the urinal next to Dr. Donnston Privvy.

  He thinks I’m reaching for his cock and he wants it. He uses his hand to help me yank it out.

  Noxotrane. A little pinprick.

  He’s dead on the floor. Noxotrane works that fast. I’d written this note in forced handwriting:

  This pervert was murdered by all who are violently opposed to any form of quarantine. When compassion returns, all murders will cease.

  I put the note over his exposed genitals, still leaking piss.

  I get out of the men’s room and out through a side entrance without being seen.

  It is morning again in America.

  DANIEL THE SPY

  Half our patients receiving ZAP need transfusions. Patients again stop taking the drug or start fiddling with the dosage. “You must carry on! This is routine stuff we must get past! Otherwise I will not learn anything!” Dash is now over the top in his anger, protecting “my baby.” “You must provide me with an obedient patient population! Where are your fucking PIs?” He is yelling this at Jerry, who certainly doesn’t know where his fucking PIs are. He does know he can’t change any of the FADS regulations governing patient enrollments. These FADS rules are prehistoric, the worst ones from the Kefauver-thalidomide era, which are rigid and specific, “iron corsets” they’re called. They are meant to protect patients.

  On another front, Shovels has Nostrill notify all blood organizations and hospitals receiving government money to destroy all their records from the years when Dodo’s blood test was so flawed. How does Shovels even know about any of this? I ask Jerry, who’s been going to the White House. “How should I know?”

  Deep Throat says to me, “Omicidio as usual is an idiot who must be replaced.” He’s never been so precise in his condemnation before. “But,” he added, “he never will be.”

  DEEP THROAT

  I continued to try and impress on Mother my condemnation of what’s going wrong. He reminded me that his CIA position does not allow him to operate effectively in America. He can only freely manipulate foreign affairs. I had forgotten that. “That’s why I have operatives like you to keep me up to date.” And then he added with a twinkle in his eyes, “And that’s how I manipulate in America.”

  SCENE FROM OUR PASSING PARADE

  DEEP THROAT: There’s been a suicide at NITS. A note was found. “I am not smart enough. Perhaps my suicide will help pressure someone somewhere to press for progress against this plague.” Of course this is all hushed up along with Donnston Privvy. When I try to discuss this with Jerry I’m told it’s all a fiction. “But I saw the note,” I protest. “This guy who killed himself, Jim D’Estes, sent me a copy.” D’Estes had been one of my pathology team.

  * * *

  CLAUDETTE: Spud and I traced the recent grant recipients at NITS, and Jerry’s name is listed on all of them as “Primary Recipient.” So he’s got money and he’s not spending it, or telling anyone about it.

  * * *

  FRED: Scotty and Sparks and Ken and Marshall and Stella and Dobbson and Lee and Donald and Perry and Tommy and I and a half-dozen others are invited to lunch by Bumstead. We go with great optimism that they at last have news about DID, the drug that T and D and Levi Narkey have been following. Some of our guys always look like they could use the free food. I hope the
ir scientists are noticing how wasted they look.

  INT. HOTEL MEETING ROOM. DAY.

  FUQU members are seated eating with representatives of Bumstead. A huge buffet table laden with food. Banner with BUMSTEAD BMS PHARMACEUTICALS on it. Fred is talking to their Dr. Su. Tommy is with them.

  TOMMY (to a doctor next to him): Why is Dr. Su shaking?

  BMS DOCTOR: He is afraid of Mr. Lemish.

  FRED: Dr. Su, you asked us to lunch. What’s the good news? You’re finally announcing a release date for DID? Great!

  DR. SU: We are here to apologize. We are not ready to release the drug at this time.

  FRED: But we don’t have time. When?

  DR. SU: Perhaps … perhaps next year.

  FRED: But your boss promised us!

  DOBBSON: Yeah, you promised us!

  Dobbson, who has heard all this, stands up and starts to overturn the long buffet table loaded with food. The other members join the action. When it is all on the floor, they start chanting: FUQU fight back fight UC, as they rush out of the private dining room and into the street, still chanting. Tommy and Fred smile.

  EXT. STREET. DAY.

  The group runs into the street, cheering each other for their success.