The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays (25 page)

BEN:
Everybody knows.

NED:
Everybody does not know! Everybody is told!

BEN:
What’s the difference?

ALEXANDER:
Unhealthy? (
BEN
nods.
) Caused by something?

BEN:
A possessive mother. An absent father.

NED:
That’s what they thought then.

ALEXANDER:
Absent? Richard was always there. That was the problem. Possessive doesn’t sound precise enough for Rena. (
To
NED
.) Where do I get more up-to-date information?

BEN:
You see a psychiatrist.

ALEXANDER:
See him do what?

BEN:
You talk to him.

ALEXANDER:
Talk to
him?

BEN:
About this.

ALEXANDER:
I’m talking to you.

BEN:
What do you expect me to say?

ALEXANDER:
“I don’t care if you’ve got purple spots, I love you.” Theo said there are lots of us. We can tell each other like Jewish people can.

BEN:
Horseshit!

ALEXANDER:
We
mustn’t fight, Benjamin.

NED:
Why not? If you don’t agree, fight, Alexander. Fight back! Never run away from a fight.

ALEXANDER:
Which one of you am I supposed to fight? It’s like Richard and Rena—each one is pulling so hard in opposite directions I’m being torn in two. (
To
NED.
) Please call me Ned.

(
To
BEN.
) So you do think I’m sick? (
No answer.
) You do. I told Theo that going to Europe as his assistant on his Guggenheim was a terrific opportunity but that after walking round and around the block all night long I decided not to go.

BEN:
Good man.

ALEXANDER:
I told him no because I don’t love him.

BEN:
You told him no because you know it’s wrong.

NED:
(
To
BEN.
) I told him no because. . . because 1 knew you wanted me to tell him no.

BEN:
(
To
NED.
) You told him no because you knew it was considered wrong and unhealthy and sick.

ALEXANDER:
Don’t I just not love Theo because I just don’t love Theo?

BEN:
There’s something called psychoanalysis. It’s the latest thing. You lie down on a couch every day and say whatever comes into your head.

NED:
(
As
ALEXANDER
looks at him, suddenly worried.
) Why listen to me? I can only predict epidemics and plagues.

ALEXANDER:
What have I done?

NED:
You’re letting Ben push you on to a treadmill of revolving doctors, not one of whom will know a fucking thing about what makes
your
heart tick.

ALEXANDER:
What will they do to me?

NED:
They will turn you into a productive human being.

ALEXANDER:
What’s wrong with that? I’m flunking every course.

NED:
While they teach you to love yourself they will also teach you to hate your heart. It’s their one great trick. All these old Jewish doctors—the sons of Sigmund—exiled from their homelands, running from Hitler’s death camps, for some queer reason celebrated their freedom on our shores by deciding to eliminate homosexuals. That’s what you are. It’s going to be a long time before you can say the word out loud. Over and over and over again they will pound into your consciousness through constant repetition: you’re sick, you’re sick, you’re sick. So your heart is going to lie alone. So you see, you should have gone to Europe with Theo.

ALEXANDER:
Ben—I’m scared.

BEN:
You’re making all the right decisions. I’ll always fight for you and defend you and protect you. All I ask is that you try. The talking cure, it’s called. (
Puts his arm around
ALEXANDER’
s shoulder.
)

ALEXANDER:
Talking? I should be cured real fast. (
Leaving with
BEN.
) Theo gave me crabs. Do you know what crabs are? (
BEN
nods.
) I didn’t but I do now.

(
They exit.
HANNIMAN
enters with her cart. Sounds of chanting outside can be dimly heard.
)

HANNIMAN:
We need more blood.

NED:
What are you opening, a store? Do you know how many blood tests I’ve had in the past twelve years? It’s definitely a growth industry. The tyranny of the blood test. Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and watch the truth drawn right before your very
eyes. We are being tested for the presence of a virus that may or may not be the killer. We are being tested to discover if this and/or that miraculous new discovery that may or may not kill the virus which may or may not be the killer is working. We live in constant terror that the number of healthy cells, which may or may not be an accurate indicator of anything at all and which the virus that may or may not be the killer may or may not be destroying, will decline and fall. What does any of this
mean?
Before each blood test, no one sleeps. (
Singing.
) “Nessun dorma.” Awaiting each result, the same. The final moments are agony. On a piece of paper crowded with computerized chitchat that, depending on whom you ask, is open to at least two and often more contradictory interpretations, and which your doctor is holding in his hand, is printed the latest clairvoyance of your life expectancy. May I have the winning envelope, please?

HANNIMAN:
Boy, you are one piece of cake. What happened between you and your people out there?

NED:
You ran out of miracles.

HANNIMAN:
Not personal enough.

NED:
They look to me for leadership and I don’t know how to guide them. I’m going to die and they’re going to die, only they’re nineteen and twenty-four and somehow born into this world and I feel so fucking guilty that I’ve failed them. I wanted to be Moses but I only could be Cassandra.

HANNIMAN:
And you lay all that on yourself?

NED:
Why not?

HANNIMAN:
If people don’t want to be led, they don’t want to be led. You’re not as grand and important as you think you are.

NED:
In a few more years more Africans will be dying from this plague than are being born. If this stuff works, only rich white men will get it. I call that genocide. What do you call it? How do you go to sleep at night lying beside your husband knowing all that? What are you doing for
your
people out there?

HANNIMAN:
I don’t have to take this shit. (
Walks out.
)

NED:
(
Calling after her.
) You’re as grand and important as you want to be!

(
Loud banging is heard, then
BEN’
s voice.
)

BEN:
Ned! Your landlady says you’re in there! Open up. Open up the goddamned door! Alexander!

(
BEN
is banging on the door of a sparsely furnished New York studio apartment.
ALEXANDER
sits staring into space.
BEN
finally breaks the door down. He carries a bottle of champagne.
)

You haven’t been to work in a week. Your office said you were home sick. Why don’t you answer the phone? Does Dr. . . . I can’t remember the new one’s name . . . know you’re like this? Ned, come on, talk to me. You always talk to me. Ned, God damn it, please answer me! You know, you’re not a very good uncle. You never come and see my kids. Alexandra would like to see her namesake. Timmy wants to know all about the movie business. Betsy—sometimes I think my feelings for my firstborn are unnatural. Have you been staring into space for a week? Come on—congratulations! You’re going to London!
Your career is progressing nicely. Are you going to talk to me?

(
BEN
uncorks the champagne.
NED
gives him a cup.
BEN
pours some and offers it to
ALEXANDER
,
who refuses.
)

ALEXANDER:
Be careful you don’t ever give me one of your secrets.

NED:
I told you not to tell him.

ALEXANDER:
Fuck you! (
Mimicking:
) “I told you this!” “I told you that!” I’ve had enough of your . . . lack of cooperation.

NED:
Well, tough shit and fuck you yourself, you little parasite.

ALEXANDER:
Parasite?

NED:
Bloodsucker. Leech. Hanger-on. Freeloader. You’re like the very virus itself and I can’t get rid of you.

ALEXANDER:
I didn’t know that’s what you wanted to do.

NED:
There’s never been a virus that’s been successfully eradicated.

ALEXANDER:
(
Repeating.
) I didn’t know that’s what you wanted to do.

BEN:
Who is it this time?

(
BEN
offers him the cup of champagne again. This time
ALEXANDER
takes it.
BEN
drinks out of the bottle.
)

ALEXANDER:
Six shrinks later I’m still the most talkative one in class. When do I graduate? You always take care of me. Why? (
No answer.
) Why?

BEN:
Tell me about him.

ALEXANDER:
Which one?

BEN:
Any one.

ALEXANDER:
Dr. Schwartz kept calling me a pervert. Dr. Grossman said I was violating God’s laws by not fathering children. Dr. Nussbaum was also very uncomplimentary. I ran into him getting fucked in the Provincetown dunes. Dr. . . . I go to all the doctors you send me to. One doesn’t do the trick, you find me another.

BEN:
What’s wrong!

ALEXANDER:
I didn’t know life could be so lonely.

BEN:
I’m sorry. You’ll meet someone.

ALEXANDER:
Oh, that. I already tried that. Hundreds of times. At first I wanted love back. But now I’m willing to give that up if someone would just stay put and let me love him. That’s really a person who likes himself a lot, huh?

BEN:
Don’t give up. Your self-pity will. . . diminish.

ALEXANDER:
I did meet someone. He loved every book I loved. Every symphony and pop song and junk food. I couldn’t believe this man was interested in me. He was so . . . beautiful. Beauty rarely looks at me. I couldn’t stop feeling his skin, touching his face. (
Pointing to mattress.
) Right there. There! All night long, two days through, we couldn’t let go of each other.

And then came the brainwashing session. What did that mind-bender say to turn me into such a monster? I walked home very slowly. I came in here. Peter had made breakfast. Nobody ever made me breakfast. He smiled and said, “I’ve missed you.” He missed me. “We have one more day before I have to go back.” He was finishing his doctorate at Harvard. The perfect man for
anyone
to take home to the folks. And I
said . . . I actually said . . . I don’t know where the words came from or how I could say them. . . but I said: “You have to leave now.” God damn you!

BEN:
Me?

ALEXANDER:
They’re your witch doctors! (
To
NED.
) All this psychoanalysis shit and you’re what I’ve got to show for it?

NED:
I did not send you into psychoanalysis.

ALEXANDER:
Stop trying to keep your hands so fucking clean!
You’re
the bloodsucker!

BEN:
Ned . . . ?

ALEXANDER:
Why do I go to them? One after another. One doesn’t do the trick: step right up, your turn at bat. Why do I listen to them? Why do I listen to you? How do we still love each other, when all we do is . . . this? Peter could be here (
Holding out his empty arms.
) right now. Why are you so insistent? Why do I obey you? You don’t put a gun to my head. Why don’t I say: get out of my life, I’ll make my own rules? I could be loved! But you do put a gun to my head. You won’t love me unless I change. Well, it’s too powerful a force to change! It’s got to be a part of me! It doesn’t want to die. And fights tenaciously to stay alive, against all odds. And no matter what anyone does to try and kill it. Why don’t you just leave me alone? We don’t have to see each other. Are you afraid to let go of me, too? Why? Why am I—why are we both—such collaborators? And how can I love you when part of me thinks you’re murdering me?

BEN:
You’re very strange. You just lay it all right out there. You always have.

NED:
(
To
BEN
.) Answer him!

BEN:
What do you want me to say! (
Pause.
) Change is hard.

ALEXANDER:
How about grief? And sadness. And mourning for lost life and love and what might have been.

BEN:
Try not to be so melodramatic.

ALEXANDER:
Melodramatic? Who are you? Do I know you? Sometimes you can be a very mysterious person.

BEN:
I’ve heard excellent things about another doctor. In London.

ALEXANDER:
Why’d you stay away from home so much? (
No answer.
) Why’d you stay away from home? (
No answer.
) Why did you run away?