ACT ONE
Scene One
The office of DR EMMA BROOKNER. Three men are in the waiting area: CRAIG DONNER, MICKEY MARCUS and NED WEEKS.
CRAIG (after a long moment of silence). I know somethingâs wrong.
MICKEY. Thereâs nothing wrong. When youâre finished weâll go buy you something nice. What would you like?
CRAIG. Weâll go somewhere nice to eat, okay? Did you see that guy in thereâs spots?
MICKEY. You donât have those. Do you?
CRAIG. No.
MICKEY. Then you donât have anything to worry about.
CRAIG. She said they can be inside you, too.
MICKEY. Theyâre not inside you.
CRAIG. Theyâre inside me.
MICKEY. Will you stop! Why are you convinced youâre sick?
CRAIG. Whereâs Bruce? Heâs supposed to be here. Iâm so lucky to have such a wonderful lover. I love Bruce so much, Mickey. I know somethingâs wrong.
MICKEY. Craig, all youâve come for is some test results. Now stop being such a hypochondriac.
CRAIG. Iâm tired all the time. I wake up in swimming pools of sweat. Last time she felt me and said I was swollen. Iâm all swollen, like something ready to explode. Thank you for coming with me, youâre a good friend. Excuse me for being such a mess, Ned. I get freaked out when I donât feel well.
MICKEY. Everybody does.
DAVID comes out of EMMAâs office. There are highly visible purple lesions on his face. He wears a long-sleeved shirt. He goes to get his jacket, which heâs left on one of the chairs.
DAVID. Whoeverâs next can go in.
CRAIG. Wish me luck.
MICKEY (hugging CRAIG). Good luck.
CRAIG hugs him, then NED, and goes into EMMAâs office.
DAVID. They keep getting bigger and bigger and they donât go away. (To NED.) I sold you a ceramic pig once at Maison France on Bleecker Street. My name is David.
NED. Yes, I remember. Somebody I was friends with then collects pigs and you had the biggest pig Iâd ever seen outside of a real pig.
DAVID. Iâm her twenty-eighth case and sixteen of them are dead. (He leaves.)
NED. Mickey, what the fuck is going on?
MICKEY. I donât know. Are you here to write about this?
NED. I donât know. Whatâs wrong with that?
MICKEY. Nothing, I guess.
NED. What about you? What are you going to say? Youâre the one with the health column.
MICKEY. Well, Iâll certainly write about it in the Native, but Iâm afraid to put it in the stuff I write at work.
NED. What are you afraid of?
MICKEY. The city doesnât exactly show a burning interest in gay health. But at least Iâve still got my job: the Health Department has had a lot of cutbacks.
NED. Howâs John?
MICKEY. John? John who?
NED. Youâve had so many I never remember their last names.
MICKEY. Oh, you mean John. Iâm with Gregory now. Gregory OâConnor.
NED. The old gay activist?
MICKEY. Old? Heâs younger than you are. Iâve been with Gregory for ten months now.
NED. Mickey, thatâs very nice.
MICKEY. Heâs not even Jewish. But donât tell my rabbi.
CRAIG (coming out of EMMAâs office). Iâm going to die. Thatâs the bottom line of what sheâs telling me. Iâm so scared. I have to go home and get my things and come right back and check in. Mickey, please come with me. I hate hospitals. Iâm going to die. Whereâs Bruce? I want Bruce.
MICKEY and CRAIG leave. DR EMMA BROOKNER comes in from her office. She is in a motorized wheelchair. She is in her mid-to-late thirties.
EMMA. Who are you?
NED. Iâm Ned Weeks. I spoke with you on the phone after the Times article.
EMMA. Youâre the writer fellow whoâs scared. Iâm scared, too. I hear youâve got a big mouth.
NED. Is big mouth a symptom?
EMMA. No, a cure. Come on in and take your clothes off.
NED. I only came to ask some questions.
EMMA. Youâre gay, arenât you? Take your clothes off.
Lights up on an examining table, center stage. NED starts to undress.
NED. Dr Brookner, whatâs happening?
EMMA. I donât know.
NED. In just a couple of minutes you told two people I know something. The article said there isnât any cure.
EMMA. Not even any good clues yet. All I know is this disease is the most insidious killer Iâve ever seen or studied or heard about. And I think weâre seeing only the tip of the iceberg. And Iâm afraid itâs on the rampage. Iâm frightened nobody important is going to give a damn because it seems to be happening mostly to gay men. Who cares if a faggot dies? Does it occur to you to do anything about it. Personally?
NED. Me?
EMMA. Somebodyâs got to do something.
NED. Wouldnât it be better coming from you?
EMMA. Doctors are extremely conservative; they try to stay out of anything that smells political, and this smells. Bad. As soon as you start screaming you get treated like a nutcase. Maybe you know that. And then youâre ostracized and rendered worthless, just when you need cooperation most. Take off your socks.
NED, in his undershorts, is now sitting on the examining table. EMMA will now examine him, his skin particularly, starting with the bottom of his feet, feeling his lymph glands, looking at his scalp, into his mouthâŠ
NED. Nobody listens for very long anyway. Thereâs a new disease of the month every day.
EMMA. This hospital sent its report of our first cases to the medical journals over a year ago. The New England Journal of Medicine has finally published it, and last week, which brought you running, The Times ran something on some inside page. Very inside: page twenty. If you remember, legionnairesâ disease, toxic shock, they both hit the front page of The Times the minute they happened. And stayed there until somebody did something. The front page of The Times has a way of inspiring action. Lie down.
NED. They wonât even use the word âgayâ unless itâs in a direct quote. To them weâre still homosexuals. Thatâs like still calling blacks Negroes. The Times has always had trouble writing about anything gay.
EMMA. Then how is anyone going to know whatâs happening? And what precautions to take? Someoneâs going to have to tell the gay population fast.
NED. Youâve been living with this for over a year? Whereâs the Mayor? Whereâs the Health Department?
EMMA. They know about it. You have a Commissioner of Health who got burned with the swine flu epidemic, declaring an emergency when there wasnât one. The government appropriated $150 million for that mistake. You have a Mayor whoâs a bachelor and I assume afraid of being perceived as too friendly to anyone gay. And who is also out to protect a billion-dollar-a-year tourist industry. Heâs not about to tell the world thereâs an epidemic menacing his city. And donât ask me about the President. Is the Mayor gay?
NED. If he is, like J. Edgar Hoover, who would want him?
EMMA. Have you had any of the symptoms?
NED. Iâve had most of the sexually transmitted diseases the article said come first. A lot of us have. You donât know what itâs been like since the sexual revolution hit this country. Itâs been crazy, gay or straight.
EMMA. What makes you think I donât know? Any fever, weight loss, night sweats, diarrhea, swollen glands, white patches in your mouth, loss of energy, shortness of breath, chronic cough?
NED. No. But those could happen with a lot of things, couldnât they?
EMMA. And purple lesions. Sometimes. Which is what Iâm looking for. Itâs a cancer. There seems to be a strange reaction in the immune system. Itâs collapsed. Wonât work. Wonât fight. Which is what itâs supposed to do. So most of the diseases my guys are coming down with â and there are some very strange ones â are caused by germs that wouldnât hurt a baby, not a baby in New York City anyway. Unfortunately, the immune system is the system we know least about. So where is this big mouth I hear youâve got?
NED. I have more of a bad temper than a big mouth.
EMMA. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty to get angry about. Health is a political issue. Everyoneâs entitled to good medical care. If youâre not getting it, youâve got to...