The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays (20 page)

NED:
There isn’t anyone.

ALEXANDER:
I’ll talk to Benjamin! Why haven’t I done it before?

NED:
(
Trying to hold him back.
) Alexander . . .

ALEXANDER:
Let go!

NED:
Don’t tell Ben!

ALEXANDER:
Benjamin is the most important person in my life.

NED:
Not yet. You’re not good friends yet.

ALEXANDER:
We are too! Don’t you say that too!

(
The lights change to nighttime. There is moonlight.
BENJAMIN
,
in a West Point uniform and carrying a small duffel bag comes home.
BENJAMIN
rarely raises his voice; his anger is inside of him and his quiet and serious determination is pervasive.
)

NED:
Ben, you were so handsome.

(
HANNIMAN
enters and turns on the light, breaking the mood. She carries a tray on which are four plastic cups, each with a different-colored liquid.
)

HANNIMAN:
Before we extract your blood and process it to insert the necessary genetic material, we must determine if you are capable of being transfected—that is, hospitable to receiving our retroviruses containing new genetic instructions without becoming infected or infectious. Each colored liquid contains a different radioactive antibody tracer which will be able to locate that part of your declining immune system that will he the best host for our new virus. L’chaim. (
Handing him each glass and seeing that he empties each one completely.
) I thought you should know, since of course you don’t, that those picketers outside, who, of course, aren’t in any way connected with your being here, are growing in number. They have sleeping bags and seem to be camping out. Is something going to happen in the morning that’s awful? Last year a bunch sneaked in and chained themselves to Tony’s lab tables. The police had to saw off the metal legs before they could take them to jail. OMB charged our budget $300,000 for new tables so we have $300,000 less to save your life. (
As
NED
finishes by taking his pills.
) What a good boy. Now we’ll be able to see if a straight path can be cleared. (
Turns out the light and leaves.
)

(
BENJAMIN
crosses in the dark and turns on a light in the bedroom.
ALEXANDER
wakes up and throws himself into his arms.
)

ALEXANDER:
Benjamin! I must talk to you! When you’re not here, I talk to you from my bed to yours. Do you talk to me? (
No answer.
)
I pretend Mom and Pop are both dead in a car crash and you and I live together happily ever after.

BENJAMIN:
Hey, cheer me up, Lemon.

ALEXANDER:
Guess what I got voted in class? (
No answer.
) Most talkative. (
No answer.
) Oh, Benjamin, I have so much to say. It’s imperative I talk to you.

(
RICHARD
,
in pajamas and slippers, enters, pulling on a robe.
RENA
,
in nightgown and slippers only, follows, bearing a plate of brownies.
)

BENJAMIN:
I’d hoped you, not Uncle Leon, would be there for my pretrial deposition. Not as my lawyer. As my father.

RICHARD:
I almost died!

BENJAMIN:
My trial was scheduled long before your operation. Your operation wasn’t an emergency. I was court-martialed.

RICHARD:
I had to go when the doctor was free.

RENA:
He’s very famous.

BENJAMIN:
Uncle Leon showed up three days late. They put me in detention until he came. The first thing he said to me was: “Your daddy has more money to pay for a lawyer than you think.” You went to Uncle Leon, after not talking to him all these years, so you wouldn’t have to pay for a lawyer?

RICHARD:
I don’t know anything about the kind of law that governs the trouble you’re in!

BENJAMIN:
What else is there to know when your own son says he’s innocent?

ALEXANDER:
Benjamin, I must talk to you.

NED:
He really does have something important in his own life right now. Try and understand.

RICHARD:
How did you plead?

BENJAMIN:
Not guilty.

RICHARD:
I didn’t expect you to listen to me. (
Pause.
) I almost died. Did you know that?

BENJAMIN:
That’s why I’m here. They don’t just let you out of beast barracks. How do you feel?

RICHARD:
They cut out my insides. I had a hemorrhage. I almost bled to death.

RENA:
Then the nurse left a window open and he got pneumonia. There was a sudden summer storm. By the time we finally got back here this room was flooded. Alexander and I got down on our hands and knees and sopped up water all night.

BENJAMIN:
If either of you has any notions of my staying at West Point, please disabuse yourselves of them immediately. Ma, please put on a robe.

RENA:
That’s very thoughtful of you, darling. (
To
ALEXANDER.
) Get me my robe.

(
ALEXANDER
rushes in and out so he won’t miss anything.
)

RICHARD:
Why are you deliberately choosing to fight the system!

BENJAMIN:
Where do you find choice? I’m accused of turning my head all of two inches during a dress parade because the man next to me tripped. For this a lieutenant colonel, a major, a captain, eight cadets have spent two months haggling over
whether it was really four inches instead of two inches. But in reality I lose a year of my life not because I turned my head at all but because my drill inspector, Lieutenant Futrell, hates Jews.

RICHARD:
That’s right. They don’t like Jew boys. Why do you want to make so much trouble?

BENJAMIN:
Why do you take their side?

RICHARD:
It’s your word against theirs.

BENJAMIN:
He lied.

RICHARD:
Yes, he called you a liar.

BENJAMIN:
He called me a kike. At four-thirty in the morning, I was pulled out of my bed, and hauled naked out into the snow by a bunch of upperclassmen, and forced to stand up against a brick wall, which was covered with ice . . .

ALEXANDER:
Poor Benjamin.

RENA:
Such a good education going to waste.

BENJAMIN:
Please stop saying things like that.

RICHARD:
Can’t you see how impossible it is to be the only one on your side?

BENJAMIN:
Can’t you see I don’t mind being the only one on my side?

ALEXANDER:
Neither do I! (
As
RICHARD
is about to turn on him.
) Why can’t you believe my brother!

BENJAMIN:
Thanks, boy. I guess it was too much to expect I’d have the support of my parents.

RENA:
Don’t say that.

BENJAMIN:
Why not? You’re asking me to say I’m guilty, when I’m not, and to allow such black marks to enter my permanent record, and to carry on as if nothing has happened. The only thing that keeps me going is some inexplicable sense of my own worth and an intense desire not to develop the habit of quitting.

NED:
Where did we come from, Ben?

ALEXANDER:
He’s magnificent!

RICHARD:
Go to bed!

ALEXANDER:
Never!

BENJAMIN:
I am going to
force
them into declaring me guilty or innocent. They will be compelled to disprove the validity of my word.

ALEXANDER:
It’s the only way.

BENJAMIN:
And unless you are willing to back up my judgment, we shall be coming to a parting of the ways.

ALEXANDER:
(
To
NED
.) How can he not help me?

RICHARD:
I thought you came home to see me because I almost bled to death. (
Starts to leave, then turns.
) My own brother! We were going to be partners for life. He threw me out at the height of the Depression. Your mother says I quit because he made my life so miserable that I had no choice but to resign. Her and her peculiar version of the truth. My own brother fired me! I loved him and looked up to him like he was God and that’s what he did. Your mom and I couldn’t afford the rent so we
had to default on our lease and move to someplace cheaper and Leon, for some reason I could never understand, buys up the remainder of that apartment’s lease and twenty years later when Mom dies and leaves her few bucks to me, Leon, my brother, sues me for the $3000 back rent we didn’t have in our pocket to pay plus interest for the twenty years. What kind of brother is that? We were going to be partners for life. Yes, I sent for him to help save you in your troubles. He has connections in high places that I’ll never have. He’s the best lawyer I know, the best lawyer I ever knew and ever will. Even if I don’t talk to him. (
Leaves.
)

RENA:
(
Kissing
BENJAMIN
good night.
) Everything will be fine. (
Kissing
ALEXANDER
good night.
) I love you both very much. (
Picking up plate and offering brownies.
) I made your favorites. I warned him Grandma Sybil should have left her money equally to both her sons. The funny thing is, after Leon was paid back, all it bought me was a new winter coat. You would have thought she’d left us the Hope Diamond. There’s nothing in the world my sons can’t do. (
Leaves.
)

(
BENJAMIN
strips down to his undershorts.
ALEXANDER
tries not to look at him, but peeks anyway.
)

ALEXANDER:
Do you have a favorite song? (
No answer.
) “One dream in my heart, One love to be living for. . .” You’re not coming home, are you?

BENJAMIN:
(
Looking out the window.
) There’s not much safety around. As best we can, Alexander, we’ve got to tough it out. I left home a long time ago.

ALEXANDER:
How do I get out? (
No answer.
) “One love to be dreaming of. . .” Honestly, sometimes I think I live here all alone.

NED:
You do.

ALEXANDER:
Oh, shut up. Benjamin, I need help.

NED:
Boy, you have some mouth on you.

BENJAMIN:
I’m going to go to Yale. It’s the surest way I know to get rich.

ALEXANDER:
It didn’t help Pop.

BENJAMIN:
Yes, it did. He found his job down here through some classmate. He’d still be unemployed.

ALEXANDER:
What am I going to do?

BENJAMIN:
You’ll be at Yale soon enough.

ALEXANDER:
I can’t wait
that long!

BENJAMIN:
You’d be better off at some small liberal-artsy place where they don’t mind you being different.

ALEXANDER:
(
Pause.
) You can see I’m different?

BENJAMIN:
A blind man can see you’re different.

ALEXANDER:
(
Pause.
) How am I different? (
No answer.
) Please tell me.

BENJAMIN:
Lemon, I’m in trouble. Let’s get some shuteye. (
Turns out light.
)

ALEXANDER:
“Close to my heart he came, Only to fly away, Only to fly as day flies from moonlight. . .”

(
HANNIMAN
enters and yanks open the blinds, letting in the light. She has equipment for drawing blood.
)

HANNIMAN:
Not a morning person? Now we take some tests. I thought you would be out there directing your troops. There are twice as many. Thousands. Speeches. Firecrackers. Bullhorns. Rockets. Red glares. Colored smoke. It actually was very pretty. Lots of men dressed up like nurses. There don’t seem to be any TV cameras.

NED:
That’s too bad.

HANNIMAN:
Isn’t it. Over fifty arrests so far. Mounted police and tear gas. One of the horses crushed somebody’s foot. Why don’t you like my husband? Is it some sort of sin to work for the government? Do you have any idea how much work all this involves? Tony’s been up all night, culturing healthy cells to mix with your unhealthy ones. Then they’ll be centrifuged together so they can be put into your blood. Then, from this, additional cells will be drawn off, which then are also genetically altered, so that the infecting part is rendered harmless before it’s put back into you. That’s for the anti-sense part. To sort of fake out the infected cells and lead them over the cliff to their doom. If it works . . . Well, it’s worked with a little girl with another disease. If it works on you . . . I don’t let myself think how proud I’ll be. Why don’t they know out there that you’re in here? (
No answer.
) Would they think you’d crossed over to the enemy? (
No answer.
) They hate us that much?

NED:
Too many of us have been allowed to die.

HANNIMAN:
Allowed?

NED:
There’s not one person out there who doesn’t believe that intentional genocide is going on.

HANNIMAN:
So. Their saint is now a sinner.

NED:
A sinner. My late lover’s ex-wife, Darlene, whom Felix hadn’t seen for over fifteen years, and who had remarried immediately after their divorce an exceptionally rich man, turned up at the memorial service. She brought her own preacher from Oklahoma. Uninvited, he got up and delivered a sermon. To a church filled with hundreds of gay men and lesbians, he yelled out: “Oh, God, take this sinner, Felix Turner, for he knew not what he did.” There was utter silence. Then I stood up and walked over and stood right under his nose and screamed as loud as I think I’ve ever screamed: “Felix Turner was not a sinner! Felix Turner was a good man! The best I ever knew.”