The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays (21 page)

ALEXANDER:
(
Rushing in.
) Who’s Felix Turner!

NED:
In due course.

(
ALEXANDER
withdraws.
)

Darlene drew herself up and marched right over to me and shouted even louder: “I now know that I have been placed on this earth to make you and all like you miserable for your sins.” And we’ve been in court ever since, fighting over his will, which left everything to me. I was in love for five minutes with someone who was dying. I guess that’s all I get.

HANNIMAN:
(
Finishes taking blood.
) “The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.”

NED:
“Not to be born is the best for man.” W. H. Auden.

HANNIMAN:
I know.

NED:
He was a gay poet.

HANNIMAN:
Well, I agree with him anyway.

NED:
How do you know that poem?

HANNIMAN:
If I were one of your activists, I would respond to that insulting question: Go fuck yourself. But I am only a beleaguered nurse, with a B.A., an M.S., and a Ph.D., who is breaking her butt on the front lines of an endless battle, so I reply: Go fuck yourself. “This long disease, my life.”

NED:
Alexander Pope.

HANNIMAN:
Not a gay poet.

NED:
(
Taking more pills.
) These are making me sick to my stomach.

HANNIMAN:
Take an Alka-Seltzer. (
Leaves.
)

ALEXANDER:
(
Rushing back in.
) Did I hear you correctly? You were only in love for five minutes? That’s terrible! What did you mean, That’s all you get? Mommy! What’s wrong with me?

(
ALEXANDER
runs into her bedroom.
RENA
wears only a half-slip and is having trouble hooking her bra up in the back. He automatically hooks her up.
)

RENA:
I need new brassieres. It’s time to visit Aunt Leona. What’s wrong?

ALEXANDER:
I’m
different!
Even Benjamin says so.

RENA:
Her company won’t give her one extra penny from all the millions they make from her designs. They’re hers! You see how impossible it is for a woman to be independent? “Different” doesn’t tell me enough.

NED:
Ma, why don’t you put on a dress?

RENA:
If you’re going to become a writer, you must learn to be more precise with words.

NED:
Do not sit half-naked with your adolescent son. Is that precise enough?

ALEXANDER:
(
To
NED
.) Why does it bother you guys so much? She does it all the time. I don’t even look. (
To
RENA
.) I don’t want to be a writer anymore.
The Glass Menagerie
didn’t win the Pulitzer Prize. Ma, how could they not know it was such a great play? They gave it to a play about a man who talks to an invisible rabbit. I’m going to be an actor.

NED:
What do you mean, you don’t look?

ALEXANDER:
I look at Ponzo Lombardo. In gym. He’s growing these huge tufts of pub-ic hair. Around his penis. Around his huge penis. Which she doesn’t know how to tell me about and he tells me to look up in the dictionary.

NED:
Pubic hair.

ALEXANDER:
Pubic hair.

RENA:
I was going to be an actress.

ALEXANDER:
Around his huge penis.

NED:
That you pronounced correctly.

RENA:
I had an audition for a radio program. On NBC. Coast to coast.

ALEXANDER:
You never told me that. What happened?

RENA:
I was summoned to the station. Oh, I was so excited.

ALEXANDER:
Then what happened?

RENA:
I walked round and around the block.

ALEXANDER:
Then what happened?

RENA:
I walked around again.

ALEXANDER:
You never went inside?

RENA:
Benjamin was just a baby. I couldn’t leave him.

NED:
You were going to tell her how you feel so different.

ALEXANDER:
But she could have become a star of the airwaves!

NED:
She didn’t become a star of the airwaves.

ALEXANDER:
Mommy—isn’t it a good thing . . . being different?

RENA:
We’re all different in many ways and alike in many ways and special in some sort of way. What are you trying to tell me?

ALEXANDER:
Is it okay for me to . . . marry a. . . for instance. . . colored girl?

NED:
Oh, for goodness’ sake.

RENA:
You know how important it is for Jewish people to marry Jewish people. There are many famous Jews—Jascha Heifetz and Dinah Shore and Albert Einstein and that baseball player your father’s so crazy about, Hank Whatshisname. But we can’t name them out loud.

ALEXANDER:
Why not?

RENA:
If they know who we are, they come after us. That’s what Hitler taught us, and Senator McCarthy is teaching us all over again.

ALEXANDER:
What if I find a colored girl who’s Jewish?

(
She puts her hand to his forehead to see if he has a fever.
)

(
Breaking away.
) All I know is I feel different! From as long ago as I remember! You always taught me to be tolerant of
everyone.
You did mean it, didn’t you? I
can
trust you?

RENA:
Give me an example of what makes you think you’re different.

ALEXANDER:
I don’t ever want to get married.

RENA:
Of course you do. Everyone gets married. That’s what you do in life. You get married. You fall in love with someone wonderful and you get married.

ALEXANDER:
Are you really happy with Daddy?

RENA:
Than with whom?

ALEXANDER:
Cary Grant.

RENA:
I never met Mr. Grant.

ALEXANDER:
He’s gorgeous.

RENA:
Alexander, gorgeous is. . . well, it’s a word that’s better for me than for you.

ALEXANDER:
Why can’t I say gorgeous?

RENA:
It’s too . . . effusive for a man, too generous.

ALEXANDER:
What’s wrong with being generous? You would have been happier with Cary Grant, too. We could all have lived happily ever after in Hollywood—you and me and Benjamin and Cary. Why’d you settle for Richard Weeks?

RENA:
Don’t you think I love your father?

ALEXANDER:
I
don’t.

NED:
I actually said it out loud.

ALEXANDER:
No,
I
said it out loud.

NED:
Once again, I remind you, this is not what you set out to talk about.

ALEXANDER:
But doesn’t it fit in nicely?

RENA:
I had lots of beaux. One was very handsome. But your father took me in his arms on our very first date and looked deep into my eyes and said, You’re the girl I’m going to marry.

ALEXANDER:
(
Cuddling seductively close to her.
) Tell me about the handsome one.

RENA:
(
Running her hand along his leg.
) You’re growing up so.

NED:
Please, Ma.

RENA:
You never tell me how much you love me anymore. You used to tell me all the time, Mommy, I love you more than anyone and anything in the whole wide world.

ALEXANDER:
(
Touched and guilty.
) Oh, Mommy, I’m grown up now and I’m not supposed to say things like that.

RENA:
Oh, silly billy, who says?

ALEXANDER:
Please tell me what to do!

RENA:
About what!

ALEXANDER:
I’ve got to get ready for my Halloween Pageant.

(
He breaks away and runs into the living room, where he opens an old trunk.
)

HANNIMAN:
(
Entering with medical cart.
) Now we take some blood.

(
She will take blood and put some in each of four containers.
)

NED:
The straight path has been cleared?

(
HANNIMAN
nods.
)

I am transfectious and not infectious?

HANNIMAN:
Transfected. Now I didn’t say that. That’s our goal. And by all Tony’s measurements and calculations, you appear to be—so far—a good candidate.

RENA:
(
Pulling on a housedress and joining
ALEXANDER.
) That’s all that’s left from when we were in Russia and they came after all the Jews and we had to run if we wanted to stay alive. You’d think they’d give us a rest. Why does someone always want someone else dead?

ALEXANDER:
I’ll bet the handsome one wasn’t Jewish.

RENA:
No, he wasn’t.

ALEXANDER:
What was his name?

RENA:
Drew.

ALEXANDER:
Drew.

RENA:
Drew Keenlymore.

ALEXANDER:
Drew Keenlymore! Oh! What did he do?

RENA:
He was my professor.

ALEXANDER:
A poor gentile.

RENA:
No, he wasn’t. He was from one of the oldest families in Canada and his brother was Prime Minister.

ALEXANDER:
Oh, Mom! Did he take you in his arms and kiss you all over and say he wanted to marry you?

RENA:
They didn’t do things like that in those days.

ALEXANDER:
You just said Pop did.

(
He is putting on Russian clothing from the trunk—a peasant blouse, skirt, sash, babushka, from
RENA
’
s youth
)

RENA:
Your Aunt Emma married a gentile. Momma wouldn’t talk to her for twenty years. (
Helps him.
)

ALEXANDER:
Did you love Drew?

RENA:
I had long auburn hair. Everyone said I was very pretty. I had many chances.

(
HANNIMAN
exits.
)

ALEXANDER:
What happened to him?

RENA:
I met your father.

NED:
Who comes home and finds you in a dress.

RENA:
No, I knew him already.

ALEXANDER:
And you never saw Drew Keenlymore again. (
Stuffs Kleenex from
NED’
s bedside table into the blouse to make breasts. To
NED.
) Mickey Rooney did this in
Babes on Broadway.

NED:
You hate Mickey Rooney.

ALEXANDER:
I’m not so crazy about Pop either.

NED:
That is a motivation that had not occurred to me.

ALEXANDER:
That’s what we’re here for, kid. (
Tosses him back the Kleenex box.
)

RENA:
No. I saw him again.

ALEXANDER:
You did?

RENA:
He wrote me he was coming to New York. This was before you were born and Richard was still with Leon and it wasn’t working out, Leon bullied Richard mercilessly, the one thing I always pray is you and Benjamin will never fight and always love each other—will you promise me?

ALEXANDER:
Don’t worry about that—what happened!

RENA:
He took me to Delmonico’s. I didn’t have a nice dress. But I dressed up as best I could. I felt like a child, going back to my teacher, with a marriage that was in trouble, I shouldn’t be telling you all of this, I wish you could like him more. . . There was no money! In the bank, in the country. Everyone was poor, except your Uncle Leon, he and Aunt Judith living so high off the hog, you should have seen their apartment, in the El Dorado, with two full-time maids. (
Gets some makeup from her vanity and puts some lipstick and rouge on him.
)

ALEXANDER:
Go back to Delmonico’s.

RENA:
After lunch, Drew asked me to come back to his hotel. The Savoy Plaza.

ALEXANDER:
And?

RENA:
I didn’t go.

ALEXANDER:
Not again! Alexander Keenlymore, farewell!

RENA:
I had a baby to feed.

ALEXANDER:
Benjamin could have had two full-time maids! Momma, don’t you want to be different?

(
RICHARD
suddenly appears, home from work, exhausted. He is furious at what he sees.
)

RICHARD:
What are you doing to him?

RENA:
Don’t use that tone of voice to me.

RICHARD:
Look at him! He’s a sissy! Your son is a sissy!

RENA:
He’s your son, too!

RICHARD:
If he were my son, he wouldn’t be wearing a dress. If he were my son, he’d come with me to ball games instead of going to your la-de-da theater. Your son is a sissy! (
Hits him.
)

RENA:
Richard!

(
RICHARD
hits him again.
ALEXANDER
is strangely passive.
RICHARD
corners him and can’t stop swatting him.
)

Stop it!

RICHARD:
Sissy! Sissy! Sissy!