The American People, Volume 2

by Larry Kramer

  Yes, I consulted on his case, both at Mungel and in his final bunker. You did not know this and I have not told anyone. Who wants to admit this willingly? He took my hand when I examined him. It was a gesture, I believe, of his fear, for his health, for his mortality. Terrified patients often do this, reaching for some sort of special connection with their doctor, as if this could save them.

  I was not his only doctor, of course. There was much fighting and disagreements with all the doctors who attended him, each with differing diagnoses and treatments of him. By the time I was summoned he was frail and wasting and the faithful doctor he had trusted had been banished.

  I could have killed him easily. I injected him many times with various things. Our famous pharmaceutical companies were constantly inventing many new things. It would have been simple to substitute a poison and no one would have known. He had almost died several times from one thing or another. His health was that weak. When I bathed him in that tub with his urine I could have held his head down to drown. There was no point to it by then. On his own he would never leave this bunker alive.

  Yes, I thought about doing this. I could have earned a prominent place in history. By the end whoever did this would have got away with it. But I did not do anything. I wanted to see what the ending would be like. Because it was obvious the ending was near. I wanted to witness this.

  I could have been a hero to the world or a disgrace to my people. I chose only to be a witness.

  You know, it was Hitler who gave us our freedom at the end. He released those of us from Mungel, including you, when he knew the end had finally arrived. He sent us his thanks for what we were attempting to achieve for him, and in his gratitude he wished to reward us with our freedom. He did not want to die before any witnesses.

  There is more I wish to tell you because its discovery will be a revelation to you and explain some things that I know have puzzled you. And this is the origin of the scars upon your back. I had told you they did not look like German scars, as I could recognize our own by instinct. Now has come word from Dr. Oderstrasse that verifies what I suspected: that the cause of these scars was something performed on you at Partekla. You remember little of Partekla because you were much of the time drugged and were unconscious when experiments were done on your back. They had samples of your skin and the skin of others. Who ordered all of this? And why? The drugs you were given were German, though. They were the same as were used on Hitler. They were administered to you by a Dr. Schline, who was in charge of the Partekla/NITS experiments in germ warfare. His method of stitching up skin was that of someone educated in the Far East.

  You were being tested to see how much pain your body could endure. As you can remember none of it, I tell you now: evidently quite a bit.

  There will be more to come …

  MORE COLLOQUY

  SPARKS: Yes, I know Jerry’s just won a Nerdlinger. And a Leibniz. So he’s in total denial about his position. Jerry is never going to have to admit he’s wrong.

  FRED: Did it never occur to you to admit that TAG is selfish, only thinking of your own agenda, killing off FUQU? I can’t believe I gave birth to you!

  SPARKS: I refuse to discuss this with you. You’re not rational about this. You hate TAG.

  FRED: I hear you’re drunk a lot, always drinking. I thought you were so fucking happy and satisfied.

  DAVID: Fred, you’re not eating again. I leave you eggs every day! Protein! You must finish your book! So what if TAG turned into a big disappointment for you. So what if FUQU is self-destructing. We must move forward! And you must eat!

  FRED: As William Burroughs said, “Paranoia is having all the facts.”

  DAVID: The fact is that it is impossible not to believe that everything connected with UC is a giant plot against those who are exposed to it, a plot whose intent is that it should never be cured. No wonder you look for the masterminds. No wonder you believe quite easily in paranoid scenarios. No wonder you believe in intentional genocide. I do too!

  FRED (hugging him): Listen to you!

  INT. GAY CENTER.

  FUQU meeting only half full.

  SPARKS: Yes, we got ten pharmaceutical companies to give us money.

  Boos from the floor.

  MAXINE: The floor was not consulted. Again! It was not voted upon! Again! And you’ve destroyed us. I’ve had enough of this.

  She gets up and walks out. Several women join her.

  SCOTTY: But we’ve got our first drug! We’ve come to tell you about it.

  PHOTIS (into tape recorder): And it came to pass that our drugs were released.

  He gets up and walks out followed by others.

  CUT TO:

  Less-attended meeting. New faces.

  MEMBER: We’ve got a drug. What do we need FUQU for?

  Gets up and walks out.

  CUT TO:

  Even less-attended meeting.

  MEMBER: Now I can go fuck anyone and live.

  Gets up and walks out.

  CUT TO:

  Practically empty room. Maybe a dozen strangers scattered in this big hall.

  CUT TO:

  The room is now empty. Camera pans the familiar space. Many of the handsome posters we’ve seen are dangling on the wall and are beginning to come loose and fall down. Avram collects them all like his wounded children.

  Fred, Tommy, and David sit in the empty huge hall. A last poster falls from the wall to the floor. It reads: SILENCE=DEATH.

  AVRAM (clutching the poster to him): This room pulsed like a nightclub, blaring with ideas instead of music. It was an ever-expanding life raft for the disinherited, a dating service, an employment office, a health-care facility, comedy club, performance space, research institute, company store, a tutorial in world-making. It was not for the fainthearted, but every one of us knew what was waiting outside these doors. So we clung to each other as we chanted our hymn, “We’ll never be silent again! FUQU!” (He runs out.)

  DAVID (to Fred): I have something to tell you.

  FRED: You’re leaving me too.

  DAVID: Guess again.

  FRED: You’ve met somebody.

  DAVID: I love you.

  FRED: What? I love you, too.

  DAVID: No, I mean it. I love you. And our house is almost ready.

  EXT. VILLAGE STREETS. DAY.

  Fred and David carrying crudely lettered posters: WE NOW HAVE A DRUG THAT YOU THINK ALLOWS YOU TO LIVE THE KIND OF LIFE THAT GOT US INTO TROUBLE IN THE FIRST PLACE. BE CAREFUL!

  BAD NEWS

  At the new rather-well-furnished office of TAG, the core group is studying official documents. The expressions on their faces show their disappointment.

  “The Greptz drug is shit. The Muck drug was only marginally better. What do we do now without a decent combo drug?” Perry asks forlornly.

  Peturba is not going to work for everyone indefinitely without a decent combo drug.

  Taking a swig out of a small bottle of liquor, Sparks answers the question. “We test them all together!”

  “But Greptz and Muck hate each other!” Perry reminds him.

  “Didn’t I fire you once?” Sparks says.

  “You asked me to come back.”

  “My mistake.”

  “Sparks, lay off Perry,” Scotty says gruffly. “We get Levi to test Peturba with ZAP!”

  Sparks turns to Perry. “Get out of here for good. You inhibit my creativity.”

  And that’s the last anyone saw of Perry. He did write to Fred, though. “Thank you for teaching me and loving me. I think I’m going back home to Ohio. But I’m not certain. You taught me so much I have to think about.”

  DEEP THROAT SAYS GOODBYE

  What did I expect? Mother had promised me so many things. I even allowed myself to have dreams of being his replacement, although of course I was too old by now and my contacts in high places were fewer and farther afield. Mrs. Ruester had made promises as well but she left few friends.

  Mother was kiboshed, destroyed by his ow
n. Floyd Harmish was a prick of the highest order. James Jesus had fallen for his charms and ass-kissing. Harmish got rid of me, too. He claimed I was gay and lovers with James Jesus. Rumors like this are impossible to erase in Washington.

  I cannot bring myself to say goodbye to those I have worked with most touchingly. I want to warn them about James Monroe, and the Dumster family. They will see to it that whatever drugs come out of Presidium will not come without a large price to pay. They are not out to cure any gay person. Simple as that.

  But perhaps it’s best not to tell you goodbye. There will be nothing you can do to stem any power now that your own dissolution has taken away your piss and vinegar. This is a lesson you will finally have to learn for yourselves. I have learned my lesson the hard way too. On-the-job training, as they say in the military. Time to pack it in. It’s been an interesting and unsatisfactory journey.

  INT. ROSELAND.

  Loud celebratory show business music. The kids are putting on a show, A BENEFIT FOR BROADWAY CARES. The audience pushes close to the performers, all wearing tight shorts, and sticking bills in their crotches. Tommy, looking down on them, raises his arms above him like a winning fighter. But his eyes are filled with tears.

  TOMMY (to Mickey): Most of these children won’t live through this. I cry for them all the time. Five hundred of them have died since our last event. It just breaks my heart no one’s come to save us.

  On the dance floor, Fred and David are kissing. Tommy watches them kissing. Tommy waves and throws them kisses.

  SCREEN GOES DARK. SUDDENLY:

  SOUND OF A RIFLE SHOT.

  EXT. TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NEW MEXICO. DESERT. DAY.

  At the top of a hill, Tommy has committed suicide. He lies out neatly on a tarpaulin, his rifle lying across him. A cop and an undertaker look down at him. Fred and David.

  COP: I never saw it so neatly done. He even left instructions. His gun license. His marksman graduation … (Showing pieces of paper.) You’re his next of kin. What do you want us to do with him?

  UNDERTAKER: He paid me in advance three weeks ago for his cremation.

  TOMMY’S VOICE (we hear him): You were the love of my life. The power had been ours. We couldn’t save them. The drugs won’t save us. We will never have a cure.

  FRED: When we first met, he had such a boyish face. I told him he reminded me of the young Abe Lincoln, with those cute little jug ears that stick out from his head.

  David and Fred hold each other as Tommy’s body is carried away.

  FLASHBACK:

  INT. FRED’S LOFT. NIGHT.

  Bruce and Fred and Tommy are sitting on the floor eating Chinese takeout. They’ve consumed a bottle of wine. A GMPA banner is strung across a wall.

  BRUCE: After they find a cure, I have this dream for us.

  FRED: What is it?

  BRUCE: We’ll turn ourselves into a big health plan for gays. Maybe even have our own hospital. That way they can’t treat us like they are.

  FRED: That’s a lovely dream.

  TOMMY: We can make it happen!

  DODO IS INTERVIEWED BY DRESHA BANDITT OF THE WALLA WALLA ECHO

  “Do you think,” she asks him, “that your being, as it were, out of action and way out here, The Underlying Condition has been allowed to get even more out of hand? Do you feel humbled by this thought?”

  “No, no, no, no, no. You get too humble, you lose all your confidence. The humble don’t think about science. I think only of science. Science doesn’t want me to be humble! Fuck humble! What are you talking about? What do you mean, out of action? Get outta here!”

  He will shortly be put in charge of a fully taxpayer-funded new research institute in Atlantic City. He’ll have a lot of money for him and Poopsie to play with. His board members will include Junior Trish and Dereck Dumster. Dumster owns the building and will take a $160 million tax deduction on it.

  EXT. HUDSON RIVER. DAY.

  Tommy’s ashes being scattered into the water by Fred and David at approximately the same place where he’d scattered his brother Johnny.

  We see Tommy watching the scattering of his ashes.

  TOMMY’S VOICE: I’m sorry, honey. I hope you and David will find some peace and contentment.

  FRED: Goodbye, sweet man.

  STATE OF THE UNION

  HEADING FOR THE LAST ROUND-UP

  At the start of the plague, The American People number 250,832,030 breeders, 7,987,456 kikes, and 10,490,321 faggots. There were 16,093,325 faggots before the plague, as there were 12,987,456 kikes before the Holocaust. Kikes have replaced their diminished numbers by dint of breeding and conversion. Faggots didn’t and have to wait for breeders to bring them into the world again. “Breeders” is defined as straight, white, heterosexual, and not a faggot or a kike. While this history includes a few niggers, spics, and whatever you want to call Native Americans, it’s primarily concerned with breeders including niggers, kikes, spics, and faggots.

  In our world’s scheme of things, much has happened: 9/11, the global world wars of the closeted homosexual Dredd Trish, Jr. (and Shovels), resulting in the deaths of 60 million people (and still counting), soldiers and displaced refugees, Dredd Junior now being labeled by Maureen Dowd of The New York Truth as “the real American psycho, a professional assassin,” the continuing damage Junior’s done in his father’s footsteps to our country’s economy and declining place in the world, the predictable bureaucratic cipher TAG’s become—the perfect name for an also-ran organization—the election of both the best (a person of color who helped enable legal gay marriage) and the worst (the monster Dereck Dumster) of presidents, and of course the state of today’s gays, which remains, along with all of this, sad and fearful to witness. It’s been and is continuing to be quite a record of one thing after another. Why, even Coco Chanel has now been revealed as a Jew-hating lesbian and a spy for the Nazis. And Sigmund Freud considered Woodrow Wilson a homosexual. History can tell you almost everything if you wait long enough.

  Of course, while all this has been going on, UC has covered the entire globe and that one-billion-dead figure is proving spot-on.

  David and I go out to Fire Island. They still dance till dawn and fuck in the Meat Rack night and day, the only difference being there are bags of condoms hanging on the trees. The Pines has aged, the houses more weatherbeaten, like their inhabitants. The crowds are not all beauties, the bodies not all pumped up, the age range more noticeable. It remains a place to escape to, a beautiful ocean and beach. The orgies still go on, house by house. Boys will still be boys.

  Yes, I am sad we still haven’t amounted to more.

  I keep waiting. Surely surviving a plague should inspire more motivated gratitude. We are an ungrateful lot. We are still leaderless and bereft of most rights. I am not bitter, I am older and my health is declining, as it comes to all, and I must attend more now to my exit, my last years with David. I see each day that he’s more frightened of not only losing me but also of being alone, going through this ordeal of losing our freedoms a second time with this new president, who should be impeached for his nonstop mouthfuls of hates.

  A recent unexpected bout requiring an emergency scanning of a bulging stomach brought both of us back into that most haunted of locales, the emergency room. Why did I blow up, just like Felix used to do? No more Emma to talk to me about seesaws. David and I live only because of Presidiums I, II, and III, which cost each of our insurance companies $100,000 per drug per year. The scan revealed I was taking too much of it all and my dosage was recalibrated. Our new president threatens to cancel health insurance to those with The Underlying Condition, as well as our now legal marriages. Yes, David and I are married. We sleep legally in each other’s arms each night, which I must confess is heaven.

  I must finish this book, and I shall. It’s been a long history, hasn’t it? How enlightened do you feel? Do you hear the voices of the dead as I still do? A nurse at Table actually remembered me and talked about Bruce and Craig and others from those early d
ays. And Dr. Donald Kotler offered this opinion of the Riddle of Jerrold Omicidio. I asked him, “Why did Deep Throat hate Jerry so?” And he answered, simply and logically, “DT got fired because he had Jerry’s number. I’m sorry to hear that he died.” Deep Throat’s real name was Dr. Cecil Fox, and much of what I’ve told you I learned from him. He wound up almost penniless teaching at some Podunk school in Nebraska. James Jesus wasn’t around to take care of him. Mother himself was thrown out of the CIA, accused of being that homosexual Soviet mole. Floyd Harmish was responsible for getting rid of him so he could become the new director, which he is.

  Time, as it grows shorter, provokes more questions from me. “Jerry, what does your last name mean?” I asked him once. Long pause. “Omicidio is an old Sicilian name. It means I could either kill you or be killed by you. A very archaic word. Take your pick.”

  State of the Union? State of my Union? Smithereens. Still and continuing. By 1992 we had hit rock bottom. In 2008 the Nobel Prize goes to Jacqueline Françoise and Gaston Nappe for the discovery of the UC virus. Dodo will be purposely and intentionally passed over.