As It Was

“It must be the combination of quiche and leather,” I think I joked to a friend over the phone the first time I heard about the mysterious new disease attacking gay men. It was 1980, ’81, I’m not sure. I think it was early spring and I was sitting in my office, drinking my first decaffeinated espresso of the morning. I had just finished reading the previous days New York Times. I like to have my news a little stale so I don’t get too alarmed at the state of the world. I told my friend the article was absurd: a disease capable of distinguishing between homo- and heterosexual men? Come on.

 

At the time, I was in the midst of writing Act One of the libretto to A Figaro for Antonia, which the Metropolitan Opera had commissioned, and when I wasn’t writing I was jogging. So, for a period, I was totally immersed in work. When I came back up for air it registered that my roommate’s best friend, Tim, was dying in a hospital in San Francisco. He had a pneumonia that antibiotics couldn’t touch, and wild viral infections of the brain. He finally fell into a coma and succumbed.

 

But was it really surprising, I asked myself, that Tim would get ill? A terrific person, generous, funny, warm, but definitely in the fast lane. And when Freddy went into the hospital I told myself that he had been looking for trouble: I mean, he practically lived at the gay bathhouses. People like me were not going to come down with AIDS. I wasn’t going to the baths. I didn’t drink or take drugs. And I was running twenty to thirty miles a week. I felt invulnerable.

 

And then Larry took sick: mild ailments that wouldn’t clear up, not bothersome enough to stop him from running the marathon faster than I could conceive of doing. Larry was younger than I, and he didn’t drink or take drugs. A few months later he died.

 

And then Brian, who lived over in the East Village. And then George, the kid from the early Caffe Cino days of Off Off Broadway. And then Freddy the cellist. And then that guy who ran the flower shop on Sixth—what was his name?

 

I was busy writing a comic opera as daily the news got worse. My close friend, Stephen came down with a chronic case of swollen glands, which was labeled an “AIDS-related complex.” It seemed as if the disease were closing in on me personally I was reminded of the pre-Salk-vaccine polio epidemic of my childhood, when you avoided movie theaters and swimming pools. I remembered Willy, the boy upstairs who liked to bully me, until infantile paralysis made him weak and stupid, and I remembered classmates who suddenly stopped coming to school.

 

But during the polio epidemic, as during the Tylenol and Legionnaire’s Disease scares, the media and the government committed themselves wholeheartedly to the side of the victims. In the early eighties, with few exceptions, the main concern of people outside the gay community was reassuring themselves that it was only happening to “them,” and not to “us.” I felt isolated from society in a way I never had before.

 

As the mortality figures mounted, and as I heard stories of people with AIDS being abandoned by friends and families, mistreated by health workers, and evicted from apartments (in one case being thrown from a window), stories of the Holocaust came to my mind. Most of my family in Europe had perished during the war. As far as I know they never made it to the concentration camps, but were murdered on the street by their Polish and Latvian neighbors. I knew intellectually that the epidemic was not the Holocaust, but I had no other experience of mass death and public indifference and brutality to compare it with.

 

I was writing about the rebellion of Figaro and the tragedy of Marie Antoinette when I learned that my favorite uncle, Wolf, had cancer. And my father was not recovering from his stroke as fully as I had hoped. All around me there was illness and death. I fell into a depression.

 

So, sometime in 1982, as a sort of a therapy, I started to express my feelings on paper. I decided to write a play about a man named Rich—a writer and runner—who comes down with AIDS; his former lover, Saul; and their friends and families.

 

I did my research. I visited friends who had the disease; I talked with a hospice worker; I went to support groups; I attended lectures; I made field trips to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (the most important organization dealing with the disease in New York City); I spent hours eavesdropping in gay bars, taking the public pulse.

 

I was willing to go to any lengths for my play, except to imagine myself having AIDS. I was not afraid of contracting the disease through casual physical contact with those who had it. I was well aware that AIDS is transmitted only by an exchange of body fluids. But on a deep irrational level, I was terrified of catching it by identifying with those who had it.

 

Consequently, for a long period, my central characters, Rich and Saul, were shadowy and undeveloped, compared with the background figures. But one day I realized the depth of my fear and asked God to protect me as I wrote the play. He did.

 

All along my characters cracked jokes, which I tried to suppress. People were in the process of expiring, and here I was laughing. I mean, this was supposed to be a serious play. Well, I had to do something to keep my spirits up, I rationalized.

 

Half hoping to depress myself, I’d call up my uncle, and to my chagrin he’d make me smile with some reminiscence of the Yiddish theater. (He was a playwright and poet, like me.) And my father was always eager for a joke, the dirtier the better—and he was in his eighties.

 

I was having dinner with my friend Constance Mary O’Toole, who was a hospice worker at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, in the heart of New York’s gay community, when it finally dawned on me that maybe humor was a key to my play. She said, “We tell a lot of jokes in my line of work.” I also began to realize that among the people with AIDS that I was meeting, those with a sense of humor were doing better than those without.

 

I permitted the play to be funny. I found that audiences at the Circle Repertory Company, where I was workshopping sections of the piece as I wrote them, responded to the humor. It enabled them to accept the pain of the sadder material.

 

Encouraged by my director Marshall W Mason and producer John Glines, I also allowed the spirit of A Figaro for Antonia to infiltrate As Is. I asked myself, “Why should I write a totally realistic play, when I take extravagant liberties with time and space in musical theater? Why can’t I allow my characters to speak eloquently, when I’m planning to let them do that at the Met?”

 

By the time we moved from our Off Broadway home at the Circle Rep to the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, the good humor and the good spirits of some of the people with AIDS that I had met, their lovers and families, people like Connie O’Toole, and my family (my father and uncle died in 1984) had completely subverted the depression that prompted the writing of the play.

 

Facing my own worst fears has made me feel... What do I feel now? Sad at the loss of friends. Frustrated by my powerlessness over a force of nature. Angry at those who have the power to help and won’t. But I’m pretty comfortable with people who have AIDS. I’m sane on the subject of my own health. And when I’m frightened in this time of trouble, I’m loving to myself.

 

—William M. Hoffman

Lou Liberatore (Pat), Jonathan Hogan (Rich), Lily Knight (Lily), Ken Kliban (Brother), and Mark Myers (Clone) in As Is, at the Lyceum Theatre, 1985. (Photograph reprinted with permission from the John Willis Theatre World/ Screen World Archive.)

Jonathan Hogan (Rich), Jonathan Hadary (Saul), and Lily Knight (Lily) in As Is, at the Lyceum Theatre. 1085. (Photograph reprinted with permission from the John Willis Theatre World/Screen World Archive.)

As Is was developed in the Circle Repertory Company playwrighting and directing workshops under the leadership of Daniel Irvine. It was directed by George Boyd.

 

As Is was presented Off Broadway at The Circle Repertory Company on Wednesday, February 27, 1985. It was produced by The Circle Repertory Company and The Glines. The director was Marshall Mason, the set was by David Potts, and the lighting was by Dennis Parichy. The costumes were by Michael Warren Powell, the associate director was George Boyd, the sound was by Chuck London Media/Stuart Werner, and the stage manager was Fred Reinglas.

 

Cast

Hospice Worker, Business Partner, Nurse	Claris Erickson
Chet	Steven Gregan
Saul	Jonathan Hadary
Rich	Jonathan Hogan
Brother/Barney	Ken Kliban
Lily	Lily Knight
Clone/Pat/Orderly	Lou Liberatore
Clone	Mark Myers

As Is transferred to the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway on Friday, April 26, 1985 and opened on Wednesday, May 1, 1985. It was produced by The Circle Repertory Company, John Glines/Lawrence Lane, Lucille Lortel, and The Shubert Organization (Gerald Schoenfeld, Chairman; Bernard Jacobs, President). The set was by David Potts, the lighting was by Dennis Parichy, and the costumes were by Michael Warren Powell. The associate director was George Boyd, the sound was by Chuck London Media/Stuart Werner, the associate producer was Paul A. Kaplan, the general manager was Albert Poland, the company manager was Claire Abel, the wardrobe was by Joan E. Weiss, and the hairstylist was Patrik D. Moreton. Casting was by Eve Battaglia, the stage manager was Denise Yaney, and the press was by Betty Lee Hunt/Maria Cristina Pucci.

Cast

Hospice Worker	Claris Erickson
Rich	Jonathan Hogan
Saul	Jonathan Hadary
Chet	Steven Gregan
Lily	Lily Knight
Brother	Ken Kliban
Business Partner	Claris Erickson
Clones	Mark Myers Lou Liberatore
Pat	Lou Liberatore
Barney	Ken Kliban
Nurse	Claris Erickson
Orderly	Lou Liberatore
STANDBYS:
Hospice Worker, Lily, Nurse	Patricia Fletcher
Saul, Chet	Reed Jones
Rich, Brother, Barney, Pat, Orderly	Bruce McCarty

ALSO: Doctors, TV Commentator (Prerecorded), Average People, Drug Dealers and Customers

 

A note on the text: The present script is from the June 1987 revival at the Circle Repertory Company, directed by Michael Warren Powell.

Production note

In approaching the original production of As Is, I felt it was important to find a visual stage life for the play that permitted the freedom of time and place that the text suggests. David Potts, the designer, and I came up with an open stage that suggested simultaneously the stature of the classical Greek theater and the frankness of Brecht and still allowed the audience, with a little imagination, to see the realistic studio apartment of a New York photographer. I feel it is important that the actors remain on stage as much as possible, to witness as a community the events of the play in which they do not participate as characters. The audience must be kept from feeling “safe” from this subject, so the actors of the “chorus” must act as a bridge between the fictional characters and the real theater event, and also as an unconventional kind of “threat”—keeping the audience aware that entertaining as the play may be, its subject is deadly. The desired effect is to assist the audience in a catharsis, as they are required to contemplate our common mortality.

—Marshall W Mason

 

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous... The scarlet stains upon the body... were the pest ban which shut the victim out from the sympathy of his fellow-men... But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends... and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys... A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. The wall had gates of iron. The courtiers brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts... With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The Prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”

—Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

My tale was heard, and yet it was not told;
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green;
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old;
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun;
And now I live, and now my life is done.

—Chidiock Tichborne, “Elegy”

Characters

SAUL
RICH

 

Depending on the budget and the skills and aptitudes of the performers, at least four other men and two women play the following:

HOSPICE WORKER

CHET

BROTHER

BUSINESS PARTNER

LILY

TV ANNOUNCER (Prerecorded)

DOCTORS (5)

BARTENDER

PICKUPS (2)

MARTY

VINNIE

CLONES (3)

PEOPLE WITH AIDS (4)

AVERAGE PEOPLE (6)

HOTLINE COUNSELORS (2)

NURSE

HOSPITAL WORKER

DRUG DEALERS and CUSTOMERS (5)

 

Except for short exits, the actors remain onstage for the whole play. There is no intermission.

 

Time: The present.

Setting: New York City.

 

Stage right is SAUL’s fashionable loft space, suggested by a sofa, Barcelona chair, bench, and area rug. Upstage center is a bar; stage left, a bench.

 

The HOSPICE WORKER, a dowdy middle-aged woman, walks downstage center and addresses the audience.

 

HOSPICE WORKER: Mother Superior always used to say, “Watch out for the religious cranks, Sister Veronica.” When I started working for the hospice I had a touch of the crank about me. I think maybe that’s why they gave me the old heave-ho from the convent. But I’ve kept my vow of chastity and I’ve made a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

My job is to ease the way for those who are dying. I’ve done this for the last couple of years. I work mainly here at St. Vincent’s. During the day I have a boring secretarial job, which is how I support my career as a saint.

 

I was much more idealistic when I started. I had just left the convent. I guess I thought working with the dying would give me spiritual gold stars. I thought I’d be able to impart my great wisdom to those in need of improvement. I wanted to bear witness to dramatic deathbed conversions, see shafts of light emanating from heaven, multicolored auras hovering above the heads of those in the process of expiring. I always imagined they would go out expressing their gratitude for all I had done.

 

A quick joke: Did you hear about the man who lost his left side? He’s all right now. All right now. [She laughs.] We tell a lot of jokes in my line of work. [She takes her seat. Lights come up on two casually dressed men in their thirties seated in the living area.]

RICH: You take Henry.

SAUL: Cut him in half.

RICH: You can keep him.

SAUL: What are we going to do about him?

RICH: I said he’s yours.

SAUL: You found him.

RICH: I don’t want him.

SAUL: Chet doesn’t like cats?

RICH: I knew this would happen. Don’t start in.

SAUL: We gotta get things settled.

RICH: Then let’s. How ’bout if we simplify things: sell everything and split the cash.

SAUL: Even the cobalt glass?

RICH: Yes.

SAUL: And Aunt Billie’s hooked rug? Say, how’s she doing?

RICH: She’s on medication. Sell the rug.

SAUL: I will not sell the manikin heads. I don’t care what you say.

RICH: Then take them.

SAUL: And the chromium lamp? I love that lamp.

RICH: Take it.

SAUL: And the Barcelona chair?

RICH: The Barcelona chair is mine! [Beat.] Fuck it. Take it. Take everything. I won’t be Jewish about it. [He rises to go.]

SAUL: Why didn’t you warn me we were going to play Christians and Jews today? I would have worn my yellow star.

RICH: I’ve gotta go. [RICH is leaving]

SAUL: Where’re you going?

RICH: I’m not feeling so hot. Let’s make it another day.

SAUL: [blocking his way] Sit down.

RICH: [pushing his hand away] Don’t push me.

SAUL: Sorry. I don’t like this any more than you, but we gotta do it. It’s been six months. [Lightening things up.] A divorce is not final until the property settlement.

RICH: Saul...? [He’s about to say something important.]

SAUL: What, Rich? [He waits expectantly.] What?

RICH: Never mind.

SAUL: What?... What?... You always do that!

RICH: I want the chair.

SAUL: You can have the fucking Barcelona chair if Chet wants it so bad!... What about the paintings? Do you want to sell the Paul Cadmus?

RICH: Yes.

SAUL: You love the Cadmus. [Silence] And who’s going to buy the Burgess drawings? Did you hear that Kenny had a heart attack?

RICH: We’ll donate them to the Metropolitan.

SAUL: Just what they always wanted: the world’s largest collection of Magic Marker hustler portraits. [RICH nods.]

RICH: They’re yours.

SAUL: But you commissioned them. We’ll split them up: I get the blonds and you get the blacks—or vice versa.

RICH: All yours.

SAUL: Then you get the Mickey Mouse collection.

RICH: Sell it.

SAUL: You don’t sell collectibles. Not right now. What’s with this money mania? Between the book and the catering, I thought you were doing well.

RICH: I want to build a swimming pool.

SAUL: You don’t swim.

RICH: I want a Mercedes.

SAUL: You don’t drive. Its Chet—he’ll bankrupt you! [Beat.] I don’t believe I said that... [Sincerely.] Your book is beautiful.

RICH: I never thanked you for the cover photograph.

SAUL: [shrugging off the compliment] How’s it selling?

RICH: Not bad—for short stories. Everyone mentions your photo. Ed White said—

SAUL: Your book is terrific. Really.

RICH: I’m glad you like it.

SAUL: One minor thing.

RICH: What’s that?

SAUL: I thought the dedication was a bit much.

RICH: Why are you doing this?

SAUL: Don’t you think quoting Cavafy in Greek is a little coy?

RICH: Please!

SAUL: Why didn’t you just say, “To Chet, whose beautiful buns inspired these tales”?

RICH: Jesus Christ!

SAUL: I’m sorry! [Silence.]

RICH: I sold the IBM stock. You were right about it. You have always been right about money. [He hands SAUL a check.] This includes the thousand I borrowed for the periodontist.

SAUL: You sure?

RICH: Take it.

SAUL: I’m not desperate for it.

RICH: It’s yours.

SAUL: I don’t want it.

RICH: Damn it!

SAUL: [taking the check] Okay.

RICH: That makes us even now.

SAUL: [examining the check] Clouds and trees.

RICH: Let’s get on with this.

SAUL: Is he waiting for you downstairs? You could have told him to come up.

RICH: Shit. No! Can it. [Beat.] I won’t be wanting the copper pots.

SAUL: Why not? When you and Chet move to your space you’ll want to cook again.

RICH: I just don’t want them! People change. [Silence.] I’m eating out a lot.

SAUL: Chet can’t cook?

RICH: [deciding not to respond with a bitchy comment] You keep the rowing machine.

SAUL: Have you lost weight?

RICH: And the trampoline.

SAUL: There’s some Black Forest cake in the fridge. [Saul goes toward the kitchen to get the cake.]

RICH: Stop it.

SAUL: Stop what?

RICH: Just stop.

SAUL: I can’t.

RICH: We’re almost through.

SAUL: I have feelings.

RICH: You have only one feeling.

SAUL: He won’t make you happy.

RICH: Here we go again. [Rich gets up to go.]

SAUL: Don’t!

RICH: Keep everything.

SAUL: I’m not myself.

RICH: Nothing is worth this.

SAUL: I’ve been upset.

RICH: I mean it.

SAUL: Don’t go. Please. [RICH sits. Long pause.] I visited Teddy today at St. Vincent’s. It’s very depressing... He’s lying there in bed, out of it. He’s been out of it since the time we saw him. He’s not in any pain, snorting his imaginary cocaine, doing his poppers. Sometimes he’s washing his mother’s floor, and he’s speaking to her in Spanish. Sometimes he’s having sex. You can see him having sex right in front of you. He doesn’t even know you’re there. [Pause. Both men look down at their feet.] Jimmy died, as you must have heard. I went out to San Francisco to be with him the last few weeks. You must have heard that, too. He was in a coma for a month. Everybody wanted to pull the plug, but they were afraid of legal complications. I held his hand. He couldn’t talk, but I could see his eyelids flutter. I swear he knew I was with him. [Pause.] Harry has K.S., and Matt has the swollen glands. He went for tests today... I haven’t slept well for weeks. Every morning I examine my body for swellings, marks. I’m terrified of every pimple, every rash. If I cough I think of Teddy. I wish he would die. He is dead. He might as well be. Why can’t he die? I feel the disease closing in on me. All my activities are life and death. Keep up my Blue Cross. Up my reps. Eat my vegetables.

Sometimes I’m so scared I go back on my resolutions: I drink too much, and I smoke a joint, and I find myself at the bars and clubs, where I stand around and watch. They remind me of accounts of Europe during the Black Plague: coupling in the dark, dancing till you drop. The New Wave is the corpse look. I’m very frightened and I miss you. Say something, damn it. [Beat.]

RICH: I have it. [Immediately the lights come up on the left side of the stage.]

CHET: [a handsome, boyish man in his early twenties] You what?

LILY: [a beautiful woman, thirtyish] You have what?

BROTHER: [to his wife, whom we don’t see] He has AIDS.

SAUL: I don’t think that’s funny.

PARTNER: Don’t be ridiculous.

RICH: That’s the bad news.

PARTNER: You ran the goddamned marathon.

LILY: Darling!

RICH: The good news is that I have only the swollen glands. [Two doctors appear in white gowns.]

DOCTOR 1: We call it a “Pre-AIDS Condition.”
	DOCTOR 2: “AIDS-related Complex.”
RICH: And I’ve lost some weight,
SAUL: I’m in a state of shock.
LILY: Move in with me. Chet doesn’t know how to take care of you.
	RICH: I tire easily. My temperature goes up and down.

DOCTOR 1: Your suppressor cells outnumber your helper cells.

BROTHER: I don’t care what he has, Betty, he’s my brother.

CHET: You’re my lover.

LILY: You’re my buddy.

PARTNER: Rich and I started the business about a year ago. But now word got out that Rich has this disease. I tried to explain: he doesn’t touch the food; I do all the cooking. But they won’t listen.
	BROTHER: I’m not in the habit of kissing my brother. I touched him on the back when I arrived and when I left.

PARTNER: Why would they? I wonder if I’d use a caterer who had AIDS.

SAUL: Doctors make mistakes all the time.

DOCTOR 2: There are a number of highly experimental treatments.
	DOCTOR 1: Of highly experimental treatments.

LILY: I got this job.

CHET: If you don’t mind, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. You’ve been sweating a lot.

LILY: I can’t turn it down. The work is pure dreck, and who wants to tour Canada in January, but they’re paying a fortune. I’ll be back in four weeks.	BROTHER: When he offered me a cup of coffee I told him I’d have a can of beer.
	PARTNER: I can understand what he’s going through. Myself, I’ve been wrestling with cancer for a while.
SAUL: Remember when they told my niece she had skin cancer?
It turned out to be dry skin.	PARTNER: I’m winning.

CHET: I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll use the red soap dish and you’ll use the blue.

RICH: Christ! I’ve been putting the blocks to you nightly for months and now you’re worried about sharing the worried about sharing the fucking soap dish?	BROTHER: Christ, I didn’t even use the bathroom, even though I had to take a leak so bad I could taste it. Now, that paranoid.
PARTNER: I wonder if it’s safe to use the same telephone, or whether I’m being paranoid.
CHET: I know I’m being paranoid.
LILY: They’re flying me out to the Coast.
I hate that place.	RICH: Chet, you’ve been out every night this week. Do you have to go out again?

BROTHER: I know you’re scared, Betty, but I will not tell my own brother he’s not welcome in my house.

CHET: Need something from outside?

BROTHER: He’s spent every Christmas with us since we got married, and this year will be no exception.

RICH: Forget I said anything: just don’t wake me up when you get in.

BROTHER: You’re forcing me to choose between you and my brother.

CHET: See you later.

LILY: I’ve been dating this guy Mick—can you imagine me dating? Well, he’s very nice, and he’s got a lot of money, and he’s not impressed with my life in the theater and he’s straight—and that’s why I haven’t been up to see you. Rich?	CHET: You know I’d do anything for you.
	RICH: You’re walking out on me.

BROTHER: We’re going to Betty’s mother’s for Christmas.

CHET: I need more space to get my head together.

SAUL: What did you expect?

RICH: Chet, please, I need you! [RICH tries to put his arms around CHET. Everyone except SAUL pulls back terrified.]

CHET, BROTHER, LILY, PARTNER, DOCTORS: Don’t touch me! [Beat]

LILY: Please forgive me!

CHET: This thing has me blown away.

BROTHER: If it weren’t for the kids.

PARTNER: I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do.

SAUL: Bastards! [CHET, BROTHER, PARTNER, and LILY put on white gowns and become doctors.]

RICH: [to DOCTOR 1] Doctor, tell me the truth. What are my chances?	TV COMMENTATOR: [prerecorded]
	Since 1981, nearly 32,000
DOCTOR 1: I don’t know.	Americans have been diagnosed with AIDS (use current fatality figures) and about sixty percent of them have died. Scientists project that by 1991, some 54,000 people will be dead. So far, nine out of ten patients have been homosexual or bisexual men or intravenous drug users. Experts estimate that from four to seven percent of all adult patients were infected through heterosexual intercourse. When will science conquer this dreaded plague? We don’t know. We don’t know. We simply don’t know. Don’t know. (Etc.)
RICH: [to DOCTOR 2] Doctor, tell me the truth. What are my chances?
DOCTOR 2: I don’t know.
RICH: [to DOCTOR 3] What are my chances?
DOCTOR 3: 1 just don’t know.
RICH: [to DOCTORS 4 and 5] Am I going to make it, doctors, yes or no?!
DOCTORS 4 and 5: I’m sorry, we just don’t know.
SAUL: Rich?
DOCTORS : We don’t know.
SAUL: And for three months you kept this from me. [The doctors exit. We’re back in SAUL’s apartment.]

RICH: I don’t want your pity.

SAUL: You’re my friend. You’ll stay with me till you feel better.

RICH: Aren’t you afraid I’ll infect you?

SAUL: Maybe you already have.

RICH: And maybe I haven’t.

SAUL: Maybe I gave it to you.

RICH: Maybe you did.

SAUL: We’ll take precautions.

RICH: Paper plates, Lysol, face masks—no, I’d prefer to live alone, thank you.

SAUL: You need me.

RICH: Besides, if I live with you, where am I going to bring my tricks?

SAUL: You pick up people?

RICH: [standing at the bar] I go to bars ... I pick up guys ... but I give them a medical report before we leave ... [Without a pause, we’re in a bar. RICH is talking to a stranger.] I should tell you something.

PICKUP 1: You like something kinky. Whips? Golden showers? Fist?

RICH: It’s not like that.

PICKUP 1: I once picked up a guy who liked to be yelled at in German. The only German I know is the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth. [Yelling like an enraged Nazi.] “O Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Schweinehund, Tochter aus Elysium, Dummkopf!”

RICH: I have a very mild case of lymphadenopathy.

PICKUP 1: What’s that?

RICH: An AIDS-related condition.

PICKUP 1: Oh, shit.

RICH: Just the swollen glands—

PICKUP 1: No way. Uh-uh... Good luck ... Oh, man ... [PICKUP 1 exits. We’re back with RICH and SAUL.]

RICH: So I stopped telling them.

SAUL: You mean you take them home and don’t tell them?

RICH: We do it there in the bar.

SAUL: How can you?

RICH: I lurk in dark corners where they can’t see my lumps. I’m like a shark or a barracuda, and I snap them up and infect them.

SAUL: How can you joke about this?

RICH: I don’t care. I’m going to die! I’ll take as many as I can with me. And I’ve pissed in the Croton Reservoir. I’m going to infect the whole fucking city! Wheeeee!

SAUL: No fucking around, give me a straight answer. Do you still pick up people?

RICH: Maybe I ought to wear a sign around my neck and ring a bell: “AIDS, I’ve got AIDS, stand clear!” Would that make you happy? Or maybe I should dig a hole in the ground, douse myself with kerosene, and have a final cigarette. No muss, no fuss. Is that what you want?

SAUL: Forgive me for not trusting you. It’s just that I’m frightened of it. Don’t know what I’m saying half the time.

RICH: How the fuck do you think I feel? My lover leaves me; my family won’t let me near them; I lose my business; I can’t pay my rent. How the fuck do you think I feel?

SAUL: You’ll stay here with me.

RICH: Till death do us part.

SAUL: I love you.

RICH: I don’t want your love!

SAUL: Take what you can... (get)! I didn’t mean that. I love you. I always have. You have nowhere to go. You’ve got to stay with me.

RICH: Shit shit shit.

SAUL:You were kidding about picking up people.

RICH: What do you think? What would you do in my place?

SAUL: I wouldn’t ... I’d ... Therapy! ... I don’t know what I’d do.

[We’re back in the bar.]

PICKUP 2: Jesus, I’ve told you all about myself. I’ve really spilled my guts to you. I needed to do that. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but Christ, you know something? I like you very much. Even though you are a writer... Would you like to come home with me?

RICH: I’d like to very much... [he checks his watch] but I have an appointment.

PICKUP 2: Then tomorrow, how about tomorrow? I don’t know when I’ve had such a good time. I can talk to you.

RICH: I’ve enjoyed myself, too.

PICKUP 2: Then maybe we’ll have dinner, maybe go to the movies. Do you like the movies? There’s an Alfred Hitchcock festival at the Regency. Or maybe we could see the new Mark Morris—

RICH: Thanks, but I have to tell you something. I have—

PICKUP 2:You have a lover. I knew it.You’re too nice to be unattached.

RICH: I have ... I have ... I have a lover.

[We’re back with SAUL.]

SAUL: You have a lover.

RICH: I don’t even know where he is.

SAUL: I don’t mean Chet. I mean me. [RICH turns away. He’s back in the bar with another strangler, CLONE 1, who is wearing a leather jacket and reflecting aviator glasses. SAUL continues to plead to RICH’s back.] What about me? [RICH triers in vain to get CLONE 1’s attention.]

RICH: Pardon me.

SAUL: What about me?

RICH: Yo. Yoo-hoo. Hello.

SAUL: What about me?!

RICH: [to CLONE 1] What about me?!

CLONE 1: What about you?

RICH: I’m a very interesting guy. You look like a very interesting guy. Let’s talk. And if you don’t want to talk, let’s go back there and let’s ... [RICH stares CLONE 1 straight in the face.] I’ll do anything you want. Anything.

CLONE 1: I want you to get the fuck out of my face. Can’t you see I’m cruising that dude over there? [We notice for the first time an identically dressed man standing across the room.]

RICH: Well, fuck you.

CLONE 1: What’s that, buddy? [RICH turns his back on CLONE 1 and starts talking loudly to the bartender.]

RICH: Gimme a Jack Daniels straight up—no ice—make it a double, and a Heineken chaser.

BARTENDER: Double Jack up, Heinie back. [CLONE 2 has moseyed on over to CLONE 1. They stand side by side, facing the audience, feigning indifference to each other.]

CLONE 2: Your name Chip?

RICH: No ice!

BARTENDER: No ice.

CLONE 1: Chuck.

RICH: Hate ice.

CLONE 2: [extending his hand] Chad. [The clones shake hands.]

RICH: [to the bartender] Put ’er there, Chet—I mean Chump. You come here often? [He downs the shot and beer as quickly as he can.]

CLONE 2: Thought you were this guy, Chip, I met here on Jockstrap Night.

CLONE 1: Haven’t been here since the Slave Auction.

CLONE 2: Look familiar. [With synchronized actions the clones turn to look at each other, then turn away.]

CLONE 1: Go to the Spike?

CLONE 2: Been there.

RICH: [to the bartender] Quiet for a Friday...

CLONE 1 : I know where.

RICH: Not much action.

CLONE 2: Palladium?

RICH: [offering his gloss] Same ...

CLONE 1: Nah.

RICH: Probably’s this disease thing.

CLONE 1: Bookstore on Christopher. Ever go there?

CLONE 2: Stopped going since this disease thing.

CLONE 1: Gotta be real careful.

RICH: No use getting hysterical.

CLONE 2: Right. Me, I’m HIV negative.

CLONE 1: Can you prove it? [He punches CLONE 2 on the arm.] Kidding.

CLONE 2: Gotta be real careful. Run six miles a day.

RICH: My philosophy is: you’ve got it, you’ve got it. Nothing you can do about it. [He offers his glass.] Same.

CLONE 1: [tweaking CLONE 2’s nipple] So what’re you up for?

CLONE 2: Come right to the point, don’t you? [The clones perform a macho mating ritual of arm wrestling, punching, and ass grabbing to determine who is the “top man. ”]

RICH: Poor bastards that got it: cancer, pneumonia, herpes all over. I mean, I’d kill myself if I had to go through all that shit. Get a gun and perform fellatio on it...

CLONE 2: What’re you up for, Daddy?

RICH: Slash my wrists with the grain...

CLONE 1: Me top.

CLONE 1: Got some beautiful... [He snorts deeply to indicate cocaine.]

CLONE 2: Ever do opium?

CLONE 1: I have a water pipe. We’ll smoke it through some Southern Comfort.

RICH: Or maybe I’d mix myself a Judy Garland: forty reds and a quart of vodka. [He hands his glass to the bartender.] Fuck the beer!

CLONE 1: We’re roommates now. What about you?

RICH: [the ecstatic drunken poet] “Glory be to God for dappled things ... ”

CLONE 2: I’m free, white, and twenty-four.

RICH: “For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow ... ”

SAUL: I know it sounds stupid, but take care of your health.

RICH: “For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim ... ”

CLONE 2: In bed, I mean.

RICH: I don’t care what anybody says, I believe that somewhere, you know, deep down. [He holds out his glass.]

CLONE 1: I’ll do anything you want.

RICH: Beyond all this incredible pain and confusion, anxiety, fear, terror... [He holds out his glass.]

BARTENDER: No ice.

CLONE 2: Anything?

RICH: I believe that there might be ... [searching for words to describe the Supreme Being] that there could be... that there is—

CLONE 1: Safe sex!

SAUL: You’re drinking too much.

RICH : I believe in a perfect... [He is having a booze-fueled vision of the Godhead.]

CLONE 2: Mirrors ...

RICH: Shining...

CLONE 1: Chains ...

RICH: Powerful ...

SAUL: Vitamins ...

RICH: Pure... [A third clone appears.]

CLONE 3: Condom ...

CLONE 1: Dildo...

SAUL: Diet...

RICH: Free ...

CLONE 2: Dungeon ...

SAUL: Acupuncture ...

RICH: Truthful...

CLONE 3: Ten inches ...

SAUL: AZT ...

RICH: Beautiful ...

CLONE 3: [approaching the bar, to the BARTENDER] Beer! [He accidentally spills beer on RICH.]

CLONE 2: Watersports.

RICH: [raging drunkenly] Asshole!

CLONE 1: Hey!

RICH: I’ll kill ya, faggot!

SAUL: [intervening] Hey! ... He’s been drinking.

BARTENDER: Get that jerk outta here!

RICH: What’s a matter, can’t you fight like a man?

SAUL: [gently but firmly] Rich.

RICH: Fuck all that shit!

SAUL: Rich.

RICH: Let Him cure me!

SAUL: [trying to distract him] Did you hear the one about the faggot, the black, and the Jew?

RICH: [to God in the sky, shaking his first] You hear me, motherfucker?

SAUL: How did that go?

RICH: Cure me! [They are out on the street by now.]

SAUL: C’mon, keep moving.

RICH: I’m a very bad person.

SAUL: You’re an asshole.

RICH: I wanted to go to bed with that guy.

SAUL: I practically beg you to move in—

RICH: I wasn’t going to tell him about me or anything.

SAUL: And what do you do?

RICH: But you want to know something?

SAUL: You disappear for two weeks.

RICH: I wouldn’t do that. I would never do that.

SAUL: I almost called the cops.

RICH: You believe me?

SAUL: Believe what?

RICH: I never never never would ever do that.

SAUL: Do you remember the one about the Polish Lesbian?

RICH: Never.

SAUL: She liked men. [The joke pretty much sobers RICH up.]

RICH: You asshole.

SAUL: You schmuck.

RICH: You prick.

SAUL: God, I miss talking dirty.

RICH: Talking dirty makes it feel like spring. [He is the superstud.] Suck my dick, faggot.

SAUL: [superstud] Kiss my ass, cocksucker.

RICH: Sit on it, punk.

SAUL: Lick boot, fruit.

RICH: God, how I used to love sleaze: the whining self-pity of a rainy Monday night in a leather bar in early spring; five o’clock in the morning in the Mineshaft, with the bathtubs full of men dying to get pissed on and whipped; a subway john full of horny high school students; Morocco—getting raped on a tombstone in Marrakesh. God, how I miss it.

SAUL: I miss my filthy old ripped-up, patched button-fly jeans that I sun-bleached on myself our first weekend on the Island. Remember? It was Labor Day—

RICH: Memorial Day.

SAUL: And we did blotter acid. Remember acid before they put the speed in it? And we drank muscadet when we got thirsty.

RICH: Which we did a lot.

SAUL: Remember?

RICH : Remember Sunday afternoons blitzed on beer?

SAUL: And suddenly it’s Sunday night and you’re getting fucked in the second-floor window of the Hotel Christopher and you’re being cheered on by a mob of hundreds of men.

RICH: And suddenly its Friday a week later, and he’s moved in, sleeping next to you, and you want him to go because you’ve met his brother Rod or Lance—

SAUL: [practically sighing] Miles.

RICH:—late of the merchant marines, who’s even humpier.

SAUL: Orgies at the baths—

RICH: Afternoons at the Columbus Avenue bookstore. [They are in the back room of a gay porno shop, or “bookstore.” They play their favorite bookstore habitués.] More! Give it to me!

SAUL: Give it to you? Give it to me! Get out of my way, he’s mine!

RICH: No, he’s mine! Keep your hands off my wallet!

SAUL: [a black queen] Sistuhs, theyuh’s plenty heah fo’ ivrybody.

RICH: [a tough New York queen] Hey, Mary, the line forms at the rear.

SAUL: And whose rear might that be, sugar? [Two other men appear in the bookstore.]

MARTY: Hey, Vinnie?

VINNIE: Marty?

MARTY: What are you doing here? You said you were gonna buy the papers.

VINNIE: You said you were gonna walk the dogs.

MARTY: You trash! [They exit, bickering.]

SAUL: I always knew when you were fucking around.

RICH: You did your share.

SAUL: Moi?

RICH: I knew why Grand Union wouldn’t deliver to our house. [They have returned to the loft.]

SAUL: God, I used to love promiscuous sex.

RICH: Not “promiscuous,” Saul, nondirective, noncommitted, non-authoritarian —

SAUL: Free, wild, rampant—

RICH: Hot, sweaty, steamy, smelly—

SAUL: Juicy, funky, hunky—

RICH: Sex.

SAUL: Sex. God, I miss it. [RICH lowers his eyes. SAUL nods and goes to RICH. He takes RICH’s face in both hands and tries to kiss him square on the mouth. RICH pulls away frantically.]

RICH: No!

SAUL: Its safe!

RICH: You don’t know what you’re doing!

SAUL: It’s my decision!

RICH: [shaking his head] No. Uh-uh. No! [SAUL sits on the sofa. RICH tries to take SAUL’s hand, but SAUL pulls it away. Beat.] The best times for me were going out with you on shoots.

SAUL: I thought you found them boring.

RICH: I enjoyed them.

SAUL: I was always afraid of boring you.

RICH: Remember staying up all night shooting the harvest moon at Jake’s place?

SAUL: My fingers got so cold I could barely change film.

RICH: It was almost as bright as daylight. Remember the apple tree stuck out in the middle of the pasture, how the moonlight drained it of color?

SAUL: I remember the smell of the blanket we took from the barn.

RICH: Remember, I bet you I could find five constellations?

SAUL: You found six... I never wanted us to break up.

RICH: Passive aggression.

SAUL: I wanted things to always remain the same. I’m still like that. I even like eating the same things day after day.

RICH: Pork chops, French fries—

SAUL: No change. I used to love our routine together. I’d go to work and then you’d be there when I got home, writing—

RICH: Drinking.

SAUL: I’d do this and you’d do that, and then we’d ... [he makes a graceful gesture to indicate making love] for a while—while Mission Impossible’d be on low in the background.

RICH: And then Star Trek.

SAUL: I never got tired of the same—

RICH: We were stagnating.

SAUL:—day after day the same, so we’d have a structure to fall back on when life dealt us its wild cards or curve balls. I want to be just half awake, like at the seashore, watching the waves roll in late in the afternoon, hypnotized by the glare of the sun, smelling the sea breeze and suntan lotion. [Beat.]

Mom is what? She’s lying there next to Dad on the Navaho blanket, with white gunk on her nose, and my baby sister has finally stopped screaming and is sucking on the ear of her dollie. And Aunt Ellie—the one who said she thought I had good taste when she met you—is snoring next to husband number three. Her bazooms are going up and down, up and down, almost popping out of her bathing suit. It’s so peaceful. [Long pause.]

I was at the St. Mark’s baths soaking in the hot tub when I first heard about AIDS. It was how many years ago? My friend Brian—remember him?—was soaking, too, and he told me about a mutual friend who had died the week before. It was “bizarre,” he said ... [A group enters, quietly talking.]

1ST MAN: The first person I knew who had AIDS was George. I had just seen him at the movies—Mommie Dearest—and we had a big laugh together. I remember he had a little cough. I ran into his mother it couldn’t have been a week later and she told me he had died. It was absurd. I had just seen George.
It hit home after that.	1ST WOMAN: The first time it really hit me was when my boss got ill. When Roger got out of the hospital I didn’t know what to say. I said, “You look so much taller.” He said, “Well, I’ve lost about forty-five pounds.”
2ND WOMAN: The first time I heard about it I was standing in my kitchen. I was about to go out shopping for my youngest’s birthday party. The phone rang. It was this doctor calling me about my son Bernard. He used all these words I can’t pronounce. And then he said, “Do you understand what I’ve told you?” I said yes. Right before he hung up he said, “So you know he has AIDS. ”That’s the first time I heard that word.
	1ST MAN: Do you understand what I’ve told you?
	1ST WOMAN: So you know he has AIDS.
I turned white.	JOHN: The first time I heard about AIDS was in 1980. I was on the seven A.M. shuttle to Boston, trying to make a nine o’clock appointment in Cambridge. I was looking over the shoulder of the man next to me, at his newspaper, and I caught the words “cancer,” “promiscuous,” “homosexual.” “homosexual.”
3RD MAN: [a cop] The word never really registered in my mind until they transferred this guy with AIDS to our unit. Maybe I thought AIDS was like Legionnaires Disease
or Toxic Shock Syndrome—one of those rare diseases you read about in the papers. Anyway, the guys on the job were up in arms that they were going to expose us to it. I didn’t know what to think. I got used to Bobby though. He wanted to keep working very badly.
I think he had a lot of courage.	1ST and 2ND MEN: I think he had a lot of courage.
	4TH MAN: The first memorial service
2ND WOMAN: He was in the theater.	I went to was on the set of Oh Calcutta! It was for Bill. He was in the theater. They filled the house. He had hidden the fact that he was ill for a year. A while before he asked me if I wanted his dog—a beautiful huskie. I couldn’t figure it out. He loved that dog... Since that time I’ve been to how many memorial services? Seth... Robby ...
3RD MAN: I couldn’t figure it out.
1ST WOMAN:...Fortunato...	2ND WOMAN:... Francis... 2ND WOMAN:... Francis...
3RD MAN: ... Stephen...	2ND MAN: ... Greg...
4TH MAN:... Phil...	2ND WOMAN: ... Freddie...
1ST WOMAN:...Arthur...	1ST MAN:... Tom...
2ND WOMAN:...Neil...	2ND MAN:...André ...
1ST WOMAN:...John...	3RD MAN:... Glen ...
2ND WOMAN:...Julie...	1ST and 4TH MAN and 1ST
3RD MAN:... Luis... Larry and his lover Danny...Stuart...JJ.... Maria...Jamal...	WOMAN:... Russell... Luis... Larry and his lover Danny... David ... Stuart ... J J.... Maria ... Jamal...
2ND WOMAN:...David...Stuart... J.J.... Maria...Jamal...
	2ND MAN:...Larry... David... Stuart...].].... Maria...Jamal... Charles...
[The group exits.]

SAUL:... and he told me about a mutual friend who had died the week before. It was “bizarre,” he said. Brian died last week of the same thing. And he and I once soaked in the same hot tub, making a kind of human soup.... That’s all I ever wanted to do was relax. [Long pause.] You’ll stay with me. I won’t bother you.

RICH: Just until I feel better.

SAUL: I understand: you’re not coming back to be my lover.

RICH: Right. Is that okay?

SAUL: Schmuck. [Mimicking him.] Is that okay? Is that okay? It’s okay! Asshole. Who the fuck wants you anyhow? And when I have guests stay the night, you disappear into your room. Right?

RICH: Right. Understood. [Offhand.] You seeing somebody?

SAUL: I said when I have guests.

RICH: You planning an orgy?

SAUL: Just so we understand each other.

RICH: I should mention one thing.

SAUL: No, you do not have to spend Passover with the tribe.

RICH: I miss your father.

SAUL: Then go live with him. He likes you. The two of you could be very happy together.

RICH: One thing.

SAUL: He’s never really liked me.

RICH: Saul.

SAUL: He’s always been polite but—

RICH: Are you finished?

SAUL: No, I will not bring you coffee in bed. I only do that for lovers. Besides, I broke your blue mug.

RICH: Saul, please.

SAUL: On purpose.

RICH: One thing. I’m embarrassed. I’m just about broke. The doctors. Tests.

SAUL: I thought you were insured.

RICH: They’re pulling a fast one.

SAUL: We’ll sue. I’ll call Craig. He’ll know what—

RICH: Craig told me not to have high hopes.

SAUL: We’ll get by. You’ll see.

RICH: You’ll get it all back when I can work. I swear.

SAUL: Not to worry, I’ll take it out in trade.

RICH: Saul, I’m frightened! [SAUL takes him in his arms.]

SAUL: We’ll be okay, we’ll be okay... [They hold each other. LILY walks into the scene with CHET. She’s dressed in evening wear and is carrying a number of accessories, including a mirror and a shawl. CHET is dressed in cutoffs and a sweatshirt. We are in a flashback.]

LILY: Rich, congratulations! It’s fantastic that they’re going to publish your book. [SAUL tries to break from the clinch, but RICH holds him back.]

RICH: No autographs, please.

LILY: Its wonderful, it really is, but can you guys celebrate later?

SAUL: [to RICH] Let me go. [To CHET:] How do you do? I’m Saul.

LILY: Shit. Saul, Rich—my cousin Chet.

SAUL: [trying to shake hands] Hi, Chet. [To RICH:] You’re strangling me.

CHET: Hi.

RICH: [to SAUL] It’s your last chance to kiss the author before he becomes famous and goes straight.

SAUL: Straight to the bars. [To CHET:] So how do you like New York?

CHET: I only got here yesterday. Lily’s taking me to a show tonight.

RICH: Do you think success will change me?

SAUL: God, I hope so.

LILY: I know I’m being a pig, but I need head shots by six o’clock. [She lowers a roller of colored background paper.]It’s a dazzling role for me and [to SAUL] you’re such an artist.

SAUL: Rich is the “artiste” in the family.

LILY: Chet, be an angel and bring Saul his camera. It’s by the bar. [CHET looks for the camera.]

SAUL: [to CHET] Don’t let your cousin push you around the way she does me.

LILY: Come on, Saul, make click-click.

SAUL: Unless you like that sort of thing.

RICH: That’s all I get?

LILY: [to RICH, about SAUL] Leave the boy alone.

RICH: A hug and a bitchy remark?

SAUL: [to RICH] That and a subway token.

RICH: [to SAUL No “Gee, Rich, I’m so proud of you”?

SAUL: [smiling falsely]Gee, Rich, I’m so proud of you.

RICH: I finally have some good news and he’s annoyed.

CHET: [to LILY, holding the camera] What should I do with this?

SAUL: Well, your brother called, while you were out guzzling lunch with your agent, Dr. Mengele. Call him back.

RICH: What’d he have to say?

SAUL: Call him and ask him. I’m not your secretary.

RICH: [imitating him] I’m not your—

SAUL: He forgot my fucking name again. How long we been together?

RICH: Too long. Forget my brother. It’s my first fucking book. Let’s celebrate.

SAUL: You celebrate.

LILY: I’ll throw a party.

RICH: What’ll you serve, organic cabbage juice?

SAUL: [to LILY] His brother’s a scumbag.

RICH: He likes you, too.

CHET: [to SAUL, still holding the camera] Do you want this?

SAUL: [to CHET] Thanks, Chuck.

CHET: Chet. [SAUL accepts the camera from CHET, but ignores the correction.]

LILY: [fondly, to RICH] You’re such a lush.

RICH: Whatever happened to my old drinking buddy?

LILY: Did you know they have gay A.A. meetings? [RICH makes a face.]

SAUL: [to RICH, trying to be nice] It’s great news, babes, really.

RiCH: You really don’t give a fuck.

SAUL: Just how many copies you think a book of “fairy tales” will sell?

LILY: I picked a fine day to have my picture taken.

SAUL: If you only knew how much I love doing head shots.

RICH: [to SAUL] Ah, fuck it, I guess I’m being childish.

SAUL: I shouldn’t have said that. I’m thoughtless. [RICH shrugs.]

LILY: And I’m Sneezy. No, really, I’m selfish. But I want that role so bad. I play the ghost of Marie Antoinette. [To SAUL, throwing the scarf around her neck and taking a tits-and-ass pose:] How do you like this, hon? “Let them eat... ” [She drops the pose immediately as SAUL starts to photograph her.]

SAUL: Move your head a little to the... [She moves her head.] Good. [SAUL snaps her.]

RICH: [going to the living area, followed by CHET] I’m going running. [RICH changes into jogging clothes.]

CHET: How far do you run?

RICH: Depends. I’m in training for the marathon.

CHET: The marathon! Hey, that’s great. I run, too.

RICH: Oh, yeah? [LILY and SAUL are busy taking pictures in the other side of the loft. They can see RICH and CHET, but they can’t easily hear them.]

LILY: How’s this?

CHET: Congratulations on the book.

RICH: Thanks.

SAUL: That’s right.

LILY: I forget the director’s name. He’s Lithuanian.

CHET: That poem of yours that Lily has hung up in her kitchen, I read it. I think its great.

SAUL: Great.

RICH: You don’t much look like the poetry type.

LILY: Bulgarian.

CHET: I’m not. I just love your poem.

RICH: Are you a student?

CHET: Just graduated from San Francisco State.

LILY: Everybody in the play is dead.

SAUL: Your cousin’s hot. Is he gay?

LILY: I don’t know. I’ll ask him. [Yelling to CHET.] Chet, are you gay?

SAUL: Christ.

RICH: That’s what I call tact.

LILY: Well?

CHET: [loud, to LILY] Yes.

LILY: Thanks, hon.

SAUL: Give us a little more cheek...

CHET: There’s a line of your poem I don’t understand.

RICH: Only one? I have no idea what any of it means.

CHET: “The final waning moon...”

SAUL: Don’t smile.

RICH: “And the coming of the light.”

CHET: I love the way it sounds.

SAUL: Smile.

CHET: “The final waning moon/ And the coming of the light.”

SAUL: [indicating to LILY that he wants a sexy pose] He loves you.

CHET: Oh, I get it.

RICH: Lily tells me you’re looking for a place to stay.

CHET: New York is so expensive.

SAUL: He lusts for you.

RICH: A friend of mine wants someone to take care of his loft while he’s in L.A.

SAUL: He wants to ravage you.

CHET: I’ll do it.

RICH: He has eight cats.

CHET: Eight tigers, I don’t care.

LILY: I love that play.

RICH: It’s in Tribeca.

SAUL: [yelling to Rich] I apologize about the book. [RICH and CHET ignore SAUL.]

CHET: Where’s Tribeca?

SAUL: Did you hear me?

RICH: On the isle of Manhattan.

CHET: We’re on the isle of Manhattan.

RICH: We are.

LILY: The main characters are all ghosts.

CHET: I know that.

SAUL: I’ll throw him a party.

RICH: That’s about all you have to know.

SAUL: A big bash.

CHET: Is it?

LILY: We’ll do it together.

RICH: I’ll tell you a few more things.

CHET: Will you?

SAUL: I’ll even invite his brother.

RICH: You bet your ass I will.

SAUL: [snapping up the roller of background paper] Finished. [LILY, RICH, and CHET leave. SAUL goes to the sofa. The HOSPICE WORKER comes forward.]

HOSPICE WORKER: A woman is told by her doctor that she has cancer and has only a month to live. “Now wait just one minute,” she tells the doctor. “I’ll be wanting a second opinion. ”To which the doctor replies, “Okay, you’re ugly, too.”

David told me that one. He was an old Jewish man who had survived the Lodz ghetto in World War II. He’d seen everything in his life, and when the time came for him to go, he accepted it. The doctors wanted to go to obscene lengths to keep his body alive, but he refused. I loved him.

But most of my people are more like Margaret. She was in her nineties. She half accepted the fact that she was dying. One moment she’d be talking to you about which nephew she was definitely going to cross out of her will, and the next she’d be telling you about the summer vacation she was planning in Skibbereen. She had terminal cancer! But I always go along with what they have to say. My job is not to bring enlightenment, only comfort.

Which reminds me: Margaret’s family saw her as some kind of prophet. The whole clan was in the room waiting to hear her last words. She had developed a distinct dislike for her family, so I was sitting closest to her when she went, and therefore I could hear what the poor soul was whispering. After it was all over, they asked me what prayer she had been uttering. I told them the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that what she was saying was “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.”

I’ve worked with thirty-five people altogether. About a third of them had AIDS. It is the Village. [She exits. Lights come up on left area. An AIDS support group is in session.]

PERSON WITH AIDS 1: Funny thing is, I wasn’t at all promiscuous.

PWA 2: Oh, please.

PWA 1: I swear. And I never drank much—once in a while a beer with Mexican food—and I don’t smoke, and drugs, forget... I met Jerry in my sophomore year—we shared the same dorm room at Hofstra—and we fell in love, and that was it for me. When the sex revolution thing happened, I remember I felt retarded. Everybody was doing all those wild things. Me, I was going to the opera a lot. As far as I know, Jerry didn’t screw around. He swore he didn’t. But then... he’s not around for me to cross-examine. He left me.

RICH: Well, I...

PWA 3: What?

RICH: No.

PWA 4: [a young housewife, eight months pregnant] At least when I come here I don’t have to lie. Like “Bernie’s doing better. I’m fine.” I can even crack up if I want to. Don’t worry, I won’t do it two weeks in a row. I mean, who’s there to talk to in Brewster? These things don’t happen in Brewster. Police officers don’t shoot up heroin, cops don’t come down with the “gay plague”—that’s what they call it in Brewster. I can’t talk to Bernie. I’ll never forgive him. Have a chat with the minister? “Well, Reverend Miller, I have this little problem. My husband has AIDS, and I have AIDS, and I’m eight months pregnant, and I... ”You guys know what I mean. You’re the only people in this world who know what I mean.

PWA 5: I know what you guys are going to tell me: I’m suffering from the homophobia that an oppressive society blah blah blah. I never felt good about being gay.

PWA 2: Oh, Mary.

PWA 5: Gay was grim. It was something I did because I had to. Like a dope fiend needs his fix. It always left me feeling like shit afterward. And that’s the truth. I felt guilty. I still feel that way. [PWA 4 leans over to put a consoling hand on him. He pulls away.]

PWA 2: I was part of a team trying to teach robots how to use language. [He moves and talks like a robot.] “I’m Harris, your android model 3135x. I can vacuum the floors, cook cheeseburgers, play the piano.” It’s much harder to teach robots to understand. [Instructing a backward robot.] “Joke.” [The robot responds dutifully.] “Noun: a clash of values or levels of reality, producing laughter. Example: Have you heard about the disease attacking Jewish American princesses? It’s called MAIDS. You die if you don’t get it. Ha. Ha.” My co-workers asked me to leave. They were afraid of contracting AIDS through the air, or by my looking at them. You see, they are scientists. My last act before I left was programming one final robot. [He behaves like a robot again.] “Good morning. This is Jack—[he suddenly becomes a flamboyantly gay robot] but you can call me Jackie—your fabulous new android model 1069. If you wish to use me—and I love being used—press one of those cunning little buttons on my pecs. Go on, press one—[he switches from a campy tone to an almost angry, accusatory one] or are you afraid of me, too?” That was my stab at immortality.

RICH: I’m not sure I have it anymore. I feel guilty saying this, like somehow I’m being disloyal to the group. I’m getting better, I know it. I just have these lumps, which for some reason won’t go away, and a loss of weight, which has made me lighter than I’ve been for years.

PWA 3: Lose weight the AYDS way!

RICH: But anyway, I feel great. I feel the disease disappearing in me. Only a small percentage of those with the swollen glands come down with the rest. I’m going to not come here next week. I’m sorry.

PWA 3: Rich?

SAUL: [calling to RICH as if he were in the next room, while feeling the glands in his neck and armpits] Rich?

RICH: [still to group] Why do I keep on apologizing?

SAUL: Rich?

RICH : If I really thought that I was coming down with it... We all have options.

PWA 2: Rich?

SAUL: Rich.

RICH: [entering SAUL’s area] What?

SAUL: Here, feel my glands.

RICH: You are such a hypochondriac.

SAUL: Do you think they’re swollen?

RICH: [placing his hands around SAUL’S neck] They feel okay to me. [Transylvanian accent.] But your neck—eet is grotesquely meesshapen. [Suddenly mock-strangling SAUL.] Here, let me feex it. [They start wrestling on sofa.]

SAUL: Not fair!

RICH: You’re such a hypochondriac.

SAUL: Ow! I’m such a hypochondriac. You and your vitamins!

RICH: You and your yoga!

SAUL: You and your yoghurt!

RICH: Its working. My ratio’s up.

SAUL: All right! [To the tune of “New York, New York.”]

T-cells up,

The suppressors are down.

New York, New York...

RICH: Hey, I love you! You know that?

SAUL: If you love me, get off my chest!

RICH: I don’t dare. You’d try and get even. You’re that way.

SAUL: We’ll call a truce. One, two, three...

RICH and SAUL: Truce. [As RICH climbs off SAUL’s chest, SAUL pulls him down, lifting his shirt, and gets him in a hammerlock.]

SAUL: You were right. You never should have trusted me.

RICH: Unfair... foul... most unfair!

SAUL: Fuck fair. The winner gets his way with the loser. [They tussle until RICH gives up.] Having vanquished the good ship Socrates, the savage pirate chief Bigmeat takes the first mate as his captive.

RICH: [in falsetto] No, Captain Bigmeat, no!

SAUL: I’ve had me eye on ye since that time we met in Bangalore. Ye can’t escape me now, matey. I shall ravish ye fer sure. [SAUL tickles RICH.]

RICH: No!... I’m pure of blood and noble born! [Gradually their play turns more and more sexual, which RICH resists at first.] No!... No!... [Relents.] Perhaps... Please!

SAUL: Now I got ye, boy-o... boy-o... boy-o... Oh, boy! [Finally RICH stops struggling. RICH and SAUL are close together, panting, exhausted. SAUL is about to make love to RICH when he notices a mark on his back.]

RICH: What? [SAUL ignores him and looks at the mark carefully.] What? You seduce me, you finally succeed in getting me hot and bothered, and what do you do as I lie here panting? You look at my birthmark. [SAUL looks at RICH’s back. He touches some marks.]

RICH: What is it?

SAUL: Nothing.

RICH: What is it? Tell me!

SAUL: I’m sure it’s nothing!

RICH: What! WHAT! What!... [Immediately, the HOSPICE WORKER draws a curtain that surrounds the entire living area of SAUL’s loft, hiding it from view. Overlapping the closing of the curtain, we hear the ringing of two telephones. Lights up on two men sitting side by side, answering multiline telephones.]

PAT: Hotline, Pat speaking.

BARNEY: Hotline. This is Barney. [To PAT, covering the phone:] Oh, no, it’s her again.

PAT: Are you a gay man?

BARNEY: Didn’t we speak a few days ago? [To PAT, covering the phone:] She doesn’t stop.

PAT: We’re all worried.

BARNEY: Is he bisexual?

PAT: Calm down, first of all. [The third line rings.]

BARNEY: Is he an IV drug user?

PAT: It’s not all that easy to get it—if you take a few precautions. [To BARNEY, covering the phone:] Okay, I’ll get it. [He speaks into the phone.] Please hold on. [He presses a button.]

BARNEY: It wasn’t my intention to insult you.

PAT: Hotline . . . Shit. [To BARNEY, pressing a button:] Lost him. Fucking phone.

BARNEY: So what makes you think he has AIDS?

PAT: [to phone] Hello.

BARNEY: He is what?

PAT: The disease is spread through the blood and the semen.

BARNEY: American Indians are not a risk group. [To PAT, covering the phone:] American Indians?

PAT: So wear a condom.

BARNEY: There’s half a zillion diseases he has symptoms of.

PAT: Make him wear a condom. [The phone rings.]

BARNEY: Please hold. [He presses a button.]

PAT: Kissing is acceptable.

BARNEY: Hotline. . . [In response to a hate call.] And your mother eats turds in hell! ... Thank you. [He presses a button.]

PAT: Myself, I don’t do it on the first date.

BARNEY: I would definitely check it out with a physician.

BARNEY: Spots? I’m not a doctor... Go to a doctor.	PAT: Stroking, holding, rubbing, mirrors, whips, chains, jacking off, porno—use your imagination.
BARNEY: I’m sorry you’re lonely.

PAT: Our motto is: “On me, not in me.”

BARNEY: Madam, we’re busy here. I can’t stay on the line with you all day.

PAT: You have a nice voice, too, but I’m seeing someone.

BARNEY: Hello?

PAT: Thanks.

BARNEY: [to PAT] Thank God.

PAT: Good luck. [They hang up at the same time.]

BARNEY: Spots. I love it.

PAT: [to himself] I am not seeing anyone.

BARNEY: What are you talking about?

PAT: I was saying how much I love being celibate. [He kisses his palm.] So how the fuck are you?

BARNEY: Tired, broke, depressed, and Tim is moving out this afternoon. Well, you asked. I hear you have a new PWA.o

PAT: Sorry about Tim. Yes, I have a new baby, a writer. Why do I get all the tough customers?

BARNEY: Because you’re so tough.

PAT: So butch.

BARNEY: So mean.

PAT: Weathered by life like the saddle under a cowboy’s ass.

BARNEY: Ooooh. I could never be a CMP.^p Where do you get your energy?

PAT: Drugs. I don’t do that anymore either. What do I do? I wait tables, answer phones, and work with ingrates like Rich. Boy, is he pissed. He calls me Miss Nightingale or Florence and throws dishes and curses his roommate and won’t cooperate with the doctor and won’t see his shrink and isn’t interested in support groups and he shit in the fucking bathtub! He shit—

BARNEY: Is he incontinent?

PAT: Fuck, no. He ain’t that sick yet. He said it was “convenient.” I don’t know why he shit in the tub.

BARNEY: A real sweetheart.

PAT: I’m going out of my mind. Thank God they put him in the hospital.

BARNEY: First time?

PAT: Yep.

BARNEY: I’d probably be a real bastard.

PAT: I wouldn’t take it lying down.

BARNEY: You’d take it any way you can get it.

PAT: Go on, girlfriend.

BARNEY: Me, if I learned I had it, I’d shove a time bomb up my tush and drop in on Timmy for tea and meet his new lover: Jimmy.

PAT: Jimmy?

BARNEY: I swear: Jimmy. [Visiting TIMMY and JIMMY for high tea.] “Timmy has told me so much about you. I’ve been dying to meet you.” And kaboom! There goes Timmy and Jimmy.

PAT: Timmy and Jimmy? [The telephone rings.]

BARNEY: Ain’t it a gas?

PAT: Gag me, for sure.

BARNEY: For sure.

PAT: [answering the phone] Hotline. Pat speaking.

BARNEY: [raging] When are we going to get some more help around here??!! I’m going out of my mind! [Suddenly, sweet and sultry as he answers the phone.] Hotline, Barney speaking.

PAT: Are you a gay man?

BARNEY: Are you a gay man? [The lights quickly fade on the two men. The curtain opens, revealing a hospital room, with bed, chair, and bed table. The loft space and bar have disappeared. RICH is in bed. LILY, SAUL, and a NURSE are standing nearby.]

NURSE: Temperature and blood pressure, Mr. Farrell.

LILY: Can you come back later?

SAUL: He’s had some bad news.

NURSE: He’s last on my rounds.

RICH: [to SAUL] You lied to me.

SAUL: I didn’t know.

LILY: He didn’t know. I swear.

NURSE: It’ll just take a minute.

RICH: What other little details are you keeping from me? They let him lie there like a dog. What else? [A Hispanic hospital worker comes in to empty the waste basket.] You! Váyase! Get the wetback out of here! Váyase!

HOSPITAL WORKER: I not do nothing! He crazy.

RICH: You, get out of here before I breathe on you! Ahora! Ahora! Váyase!

NURSE: Mr. Farrell, please.

SAUL: Come back later. Más tarde, por favor.

RICH : Go back to your picket line. [To SAUL:] They want a wage hike, no less. He tried to get me to bribe him to clean my room—

HOSPITAL WORKER: Qué coño estás diciendo? (What the fuck are you saying?)

NURSE: Please cooperate.

LILY: He didn’t say anything.

RICH: He won’t go near my bed, but he’s not afraid to touch my money.

SAUL: You misunderstood him.

RICH: El dinero está limpio, ah? Tu madre. (Money is clean, huh, motherfucker?)

HOSPITAL WORKER: Maricón. (Faggot.)

RICH: [to SAUL] They’re unionizing primates now.

LILY: [to RICH] Sh!

HOSPITAL WORKER: No entiendo. (I don’t understand.) I going. [He exits.]

LILY: [aside to SAUL] I shouldn’t have told him about Chet.

SAUL: [aside to LILY] Better you than someone else.

RICH: [imitating LILY and SAUL] Bzzz bzzz bzzz.

NURSE: [trying to put a blood pressure cuff on RICH’s arm] Will you be still a moment so I can check your blood pressure?

RICH: Are you a union member, too?

NURSE: [to SAUL] What shall I do?

LILY: A good friend of his just passed away.

NURSE: AIDS? [She resumes struggling with the cuff.]

RICH: The undertakers’ union. Go away, I’m on strike, too; I refuse to participate in the documentation of my own demise.

SAUL: She’s only trying to help you.

RICH: [to the nurse, ripping off the cuff] Go find another statistic for the Center for Disease Control.

NURSE: [to SAUL] I’m a patient woman, but he wants me to lose it. I swear that’s what he’s after.

RICH: Lady, fuck off!

SAUL: [to the nurse] Please. Can’t you see he’s upset?

NURSE: [to RICH] Okay, you win. I’m losing it. Are you happy? I’m angry, angry, Mr. Farrell.

LILY: Will you please go!

NURSE: A person can take only so much. I give up. I don’t have to put up with this shit. I’m gonna speak to my supervisor. [The NURSE exits.]

RICH: [applauding] Three gold stars for self-assertion!

LILY: [to SAUL] I should have kept my mouth shut.

RICH: Having brought Romeo the news that Juliet is dead, Balthasar makes a tearful exit.

LILY: I don’t know what to say. [LILY looks at RICH, then SAUL.]

RICH: I said: Balthasar makes a tearful exit.

LILY: I know how you’re feeling.

RICH: No matter. Get thee gone and hire those horses.

LILY: I loved Chet, too.

RICH: Tush, thou art deceived.

LILY: He told me he was sorry for the way he treated you.

RICH: Do the thing I bid thee.

LILY: He didn’t belong in New York. He thought he was so sophisticated, but he was just a kid from Mendocino. I’m sorry I let him go home.

RICH: The messenger must go. The hero wishes to be alone with his confidant. [RICH turns his back on SAUL and LILY.]

LILY: I’ll be back tomorrow. [Aside to SAUL:] I’ve got half a crown roast from Margo. She went vegetarian. I’ll be up. I have to have a talk with Mick. He’s irrational on the subject of AIDS. He can go to hell. If he’s so afraid, let him move out. [To RICH:] I won’t let him come between us. You’re my buddy. [SAUL indicates that LILY should leave. She gathers up her belongings, mimes dialing a telephone, and blows SAUL a kiss.] Rich? [SAUL shakes his head no. She leaves. SAUL tries to think of something to say to RICH. He abandons the effort and picks up the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.]

SAUL: “African quadruped.” [Writing.] G-n-u . . . “Hitler’s father.” [Counting on his fingers.] One, two . . . five letters. Let’s see: Herman? Herman Hitler? [Counting.] That’s six . . . Otto? ... Werner? ... Rudi? ... Putzi? [He shrugs.] Fuck. [He reads on.] Thank God: “Jewish rolls.” Starts with a b, six letters: bagels. [He starts to write it in.] Shit, that won’t work. I need a y.

RICH: [without turning] Bialys.

SAUL: B-i-a-l-y-s.

RICH: Short for Bialystok, a large industrial city in eastern Poland... [turning to SAUL] hometown of Ludwig Zamenhof, inventor of Esperanto, an artificial international language. Alois Hitler! A-l-o—

SAUL: [putting down the puzzle] Outclassed again. Why do I bother, He knows everything.

RICH: When I was a kid I used to spend all my time in libraries. My childhood was—

SAUL: If I had a father like yours I would have done the same thing.

RICH: But thanks to that son of a bitch I could tell you how many metric tons of coal the Benelux countries produced per annum, and the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Liechtenstein.

SAUL: I give up.

RICH: Vaduz.

SAUL: Miss Trivial Pursuit.

RICH: I knew to which great linguistic family the Telegu language of South India belongs.

SAUL: Telegu? Isn’t that the national dish of Botswana?

RICH: [ignoring him] The Dravidian. [SAUL straightens up the bed table.] I’ve always loved words... I wrote poetry when I was a kid. My brother used to make fun of me...

Winter, winter,
How you glinter,
With holidays’ array.
And the snow
We all know
Is here all day.

[SAUL smiles.] I was eight, nine when I wrote that. I had just come in from sledding down Indian Hill—a steep road that connects Jefferson Heights to the valley.

SAUL: You showed it to me on our grand tour of West Jersey.

RICH: It was a late afternoon just before sundown and the sky was intensely blue and intensely cold and you could see the stars already. For some reason nobody was home when I came back, so I stood there at the stamped enamel-top kitchen table dripping in my frozen corduroys and wrote that poem.

SAUL: Are you comfortable? [RICH shrugs. SAUL fixes his pillows.]

RICH: I was a good kid, but I was lonely and scared all the time. I was so desperate to find people like myself that I looked for them in the indexes of books—under H. I eventually found them—

SAUL: But not in books.

RICH: The next thing you know I moved to the city and was your typical office-worker-slash-writer. I hated my job, so I grew a beard and wore sandals, hoping they would fire me and give me permanent unemployment. I wanted to stay at home in my rent-controlled apartment and drink bourbon and write poems. I did that for a period. I loved it. The apartment got filthy and I did, too, and I’d go out only at night—to pick up guys. And then I found you—in a porno theater—[he takes SAUL’s hand] and we semi-settled down and you took my picture and I started to jog. We bought a loft—

SAUL: And raised a cat—

RICH:—and loved each other. But that wasn’t enough for me. I don’t think you ever understood this: you weren’t my muse, you were... [he searches for the word] Saul. [SAUL rises and looks out the window.] I loved you but I wanted someone to write poems to. During our marriage I had almost stopped writing and felt stifled even though our loft had appeared in New York magazine. And then I met Chet and left you in the lurch and lived with him at the Chelsea Hotel. He was shallow, callow, and selfish, and I loved him, too.

We did a lot of coke and I wrote a lot of poetry and the catering was booming and the New Yorker published a story of mine and I ran in the marathon. I was on a roll. [With mounting excitement as he relives the experience.] I remember training on the East River Drive for the first time. I didn’t realize how narrow and dark the city streets were until I got to the river and all of a sudden there was the fucking river. The sky was the same color as that twilight when I was a kid. I came from the darkness into the light. I’m running downtown and I make this bend and out of nowhere straight up ahead is the Manhattan Bridge and then the Brooklyn Bridge, one after another, and my earphones are playing Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music. It can’t get better than this, I know it. I’m running and crying from gratitude. I came from the darkness into the light. I’m running and telling God I didn’t know He was that good or that big, thank you, Jesus, thanks, thanks... [He slumps back, exhausted from the effort.]

The next morning I woke up with the flu and stayed in bed for a couple of days and felt much better. But my throat stayed a little sore and my glands were a little swollen... [Long silence. Casually.] Saul, I want you to do something for me. Will you do something for me, baby?

SAUL: Sure, babe.

RICH: Now listen. I want you to go out of here and go to the doctor and tell him you aren’t sleeping so hot—

SAUL: I’m sleeping okay.

RICH: Sh! Now listen: you tell him you want something to make you sleep and Valium doesn’t work on you, but a friend once gave you some Seconal—

SAUL: No! I won’t do it!

RICH: [pressuring SAUL relentlessly] I tried hoarding the pills here, but every night the nurse stays to watch me swallow them down.

SAUL: I can’t do that.

RICH: I don’t want to end up like Chet.

SAUL: I won’t listen.

RICH: If you love me, you’ll help me. I have something that’s eating me up. I don’t want to go on. I’m scared to go on.

SAUL: Don’t do this to me! I can’t handle it. I’ll go out the window, I swear, don’t do this—

RICH: Don’t you see, it’s the only way. Just get the pills.

SAUL: No!

RICH: Just have them around. You’ll get used to the idea. And when the lesions spread above my neck so that I don’t look the same, you’ll want me to have them.

SAUL: Help me, help me!

RICH: It’s all right. Not now.

SAUL: No.

RICH: Tomorrow.

SAUL: No.

RICH: The day after.

SAUL: No.

RICH: We’ll see. [RICH’s brother, wearing a surgical mask, gown, and gloves and carrying a small shopping bag, tiptoes in, stopping when he notices RICH and SAUL.]

SAUL: Oh, my God. I think it’s your brother.

BROTHER: I’ll come back later.

SAUL: [pulling himself together] No, I was just going.

BROTHER: It’s all right, really.

SAUL: I’ve been here for a while.

BROTHER: I’m interrupting.

SAUL: Really.

RICH: [to his BROTHER] Unless you’re planning to come into intimate contact with me or my body fluids, none of that shit you have on is necessary.

BROTHER: The sign says—

RICH: But please restrain your brotherly affection for my sake; who knows what diseases you might have brought in with you? [The BROTHER removes the mask, gown, and gloves]

SAUL: You two haven’t seen each other in a while, so why don’t I just—

RICH: By all means. You need a break, kid. Think about what I said.

SAUL: It stopped raining. I’ll take a walk.

RICH: Have a nice walk.

BROTHER: Good seeing ya...? [He has forgotten SAUL’s name.]

SAUL: Saul. Yeah. [SAUL exits. Beat.]

BROTHER: I owe you an apology... [RICH won’t help him.] I was very frightened ... I’m afraid I panicked... Please forgive me.

RICH: Nothing to forgive.

BROTHER: [brightly] Betty sends her love. She sent along a tin of butter crunch. [He offers RICH a tin, which RICH ignores.] You’re not on any special diet? I told Betty I thought maybe you’d be on one of those macrobiotic diets. I read in the papers that it’s helped some people with ...

RICH: AIDS.

BROTHER: Yes. I keep a file of clippings on all the latest medical developments. [He takes a clipping out of his wallet.] Looks like they’re going to have a vaccine soon. The French—

RICH: That’s to prevent AIDS. I already have AIDS.

BROTHER: They have this new drug, AZT.

RICH: That’s for pneumonia. I don’t have pneumonia.

BROTHER: Right... So how are you doing?

RICH: [smiling cheerfully] I have Kaposi’s sarcoma, a hitherto rare form of skin cancer. It’s spreading. I have just begun chemotherapy. It nauseates me. I expect my hair will fall out. I also have a fungal infection of the throat called candidiasis, or thrush. My life expectancy is... I have a greater chance of winning the lottery. Otherwise I’m fine. How are you?

BROTHER: I’m sorry... [Brightly again, after a long pause.] Mary Pat sends her love. She won a school swimming competition and I registered her for the South Jersey championship. Oh, I forgot, she made this for you ... [He takes a large handmade fold-out card from the shopping bag. It opens downward a full two feet.]

RICH: Say, have you heard about the miracle of AIDS?

BROTHER: What?

RICH: It can turn a fruit into a vegetable. What’s the worst thing about getting AIDS? [The BROTHER lets the card fall to the floor.]

BROTHER: Stop it!

RICH: Trying to convince your parents that you’re Haitian. Get it?

BROTHER: I came here to see if I could help you.

RICH: Skip it. So what do you want?

BROTHER: I don’t want anything.

RICH: Everything I own is going to Saul—

BROTHER: I don’t want anything.

RICH: Except for the stuff Mom left us. I told Saul that it’s to go to you. Except for the Barcelona chair—

BROTHER: I don’t care about—

RICH: I’m leaving Saul the copyright to my book—

BROTHER: Why are you doing this to me?

RICH: So you don’t want my worldly possessions, such as they are; you want me to relieve your guilt.

BROTHER: Stop it.

RICH: [making the sign of the cross over his BROTHER, chanting] I hereby exonerate you of the sin of being ashamed of your queer brother and being a coward in the face of—

BROTHER: Stop! Don’t! [The BROTHER grabs RICH’s hand.]

RICH: No!

BROTHER: Richard, don’t!... [He attempts to hug RICH, who resists with all of his strength.] I don’t care... I don’t care!... Rich! ... Richie... Richie... [RICH relents. They hug.]

RICH: I’m so... (frightened)

BROTHER: Forgive me. Forgive me.

RICH: I don’t want to... (die)

BROTHER: It’s all right. I’m here... I’m here... [They hold each other close for a beat. The HOSPITAL WORKER rushes into the room.]

HOSPITAL WORKER: Psst. Oye. Psst. [RICH and his BROTHER notice the WORKER.]

RICH: What do you want now?

HOSPITAL WORKER: [shakes his head no] Viene. Viene. He come. He come. [He pulls the BROTHER from RICH.]

RICH: Who come?

HOSPITAL WORKER: Su amigo. Your freng. He no like.

BROTHER: What’s he saying? [RICH starts to laugh. Enter SAUL. The WORKER starts sweeping and whistling with an air of exuberant nonchalance. The following is overlapping.]

RICH: [laughing] He... he...

SAUL: What’s going on?

BROTHER: Richie, what’s so damned funny?

RICH: He thought we... [he breaks up] that he and I were cheating on you.

BROTHER: He thought that you and I were... [He laughs.]

RICH: He came in to warn me that you were coming! [He laughs. To the worker.] Gracias! Muchas gracias!

SAUL: He thought you two were... [He laughs.]

HOSPITAL WORKER: [to RICH] De nada. (You’re welcome.) Why you laugh? [The WORKER laughs.] Como hay maricones. (What a bunch of faggots.)

RICH: Es mi hermano. (He’s my brother.)

HOSPITAL WORKER: Coño. (Fuck.)

RICH: Perdona por lo que dije antes. Yo [pointing to himself] era mucho estupido. (Forgive me for what I said to you before. I was being very stupid.)

HOSPITAL WORKER: De nada. Somos todos estúpidos, chico. (We’re all stupid, my friend.) [He exits. The giggles subside.]

BROTHER: [cheking watch, stiffening his spine] I’ve got to be going now.

RICH: I’m glad you came by.

BROTHER: I’ll be back tomorrow with Mary Pat. She’s been dying—wanting to come by. She’s been writing poetry and—

RICH: I’d love to see her. And tell Betty thanks for the... ?

BROTHER: Butter crunch. [Exiting, shaking hands with SAUL.] Good seeing ya...? [He has forgotten SAUL’s name again.]

SAUL: Saul.

BROTHER: Sorry. Bye. [He exits.]

SAUL: I won’t get upset. I won’t get upset.

RICH: What’s the matter?

SAUL: It’s my problem.

RICH: What?

SAUL: Rich, I’ve thought about things.

RICH: What?

SAUL: [suddenly exploding] Goddamn it! That prick doesn’t know my name after—how many years are we together?

RICH: Were together.

SAUL: Pardon me, I forgot we got an annulment from the pope. Fuck it, I won’t get upset.

RICH: [overlapping] My brother finds it hard to deal with the fact that—

SAUL: I said fuck it.

RICH: Don’t you see, it was a big step for him—

SAUL: Your brother hates my fucking guts. Haven’t you ever told him I didn’t turn you queer?

RICH: My brother—

SAUL: I didn’t give you AIDS either.

RICH: My brother—

SAUL: Why’re you always defending him? What about me?

RICH: My brother’s got a few feelings, too, even if he isn’t a card-carrying member of the lavender elite.

SAUL: Let’s hear it for our working-class hero.

RICH: You’ve never tried talking to him. You’re so self-centered that it never occurred to you—

SAUL: I’m self—Now wait one minute! I’m so self-centered that I was willing to buy the pills for you.

RiCH: You have the pills? [The other actors create the sleazy atmosphere of Christopher Street near the Hudson River.]

DEALER 1: Yo, my man.

SAUL: I was willing to go down to Christopher Street, where all the drug dealers hang out.

DEALER 2: What’s ‘attenin’, what’s ’attenin’? [SAUL turns his back to RICH and immediately he is on Christopher Street.]

SAUL: [to Dealer 2] Nice night.

RICH: I told you to go to the doctor’s.

DEALER 1: Smoke ‘n’ acid, MDA ‘n’ speed, Smoke ‘n’ acid, MDA ‘n’ speed...

DEALER 2: Smoke ‘n’ coke, smoke ‘n’ coke, smoke ‘n’ coke...

SAUL: [to Dealer 1] I said, “Nice night.”

DEALER 1: Real nice. What’s shakin’, babe?

RICH: All you would’ve had to say to the doctor was “My roommate has AIDS and I’m not sleeping well.”

SAUL: [to Dealer 1] I’m not sleeping well.

DEALER 1: I have just the thing. Step right into my office.

DEALER 3: Speed, acid, mesc, ups, downs, crack...

SAUL: I’ll take one hundred.

DEALER 1: Two dollars a cap.

RICH: Forty’s enough.

SAUL: I wanted enough for both of us.

DEALER 1: You got the cash, I got the stash.

RICH: Tristan and Isolde.

DEALER 1: Hey, man, you want them or not?

SAUL: You don’t understand anything!

DEALER 1: Look, man, I can’t handle all that emotiating.

SAUL: [near the breaking point] You’ve never understood anything!

DEALER 1: Gimme the greens, I’ll give you the reds.

RICH: The widow throws herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.

SAUL: [hitting the bed with his fists. If RICH were the bed he’d be dead] SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! You selfish bastard!

RICH: What stopped you?

SAUL: From hitting you?

RICH: From buying the pills.

SAUL: The pills? Nothing stopped me. I bought them.

RICH: Thank you. Where are they?

SAUL: I threw them away.

RICH: Why?

SAUL: Let me help you live!

RICH: What’s so hot about living when you’re covered with lesions and you’re coming down with a new infection every day?... If it gets too bad, I want to be able to quietly disappear.

SAUL: I won’t argue the logic of it. I can’t do what you want me to do.

RICH: I just want them around. You keep them for me—just in case.

SAUL: I won’t.

RICH: Then I’ll get them myself. I’ll go out of here and get them. [He climbs out of bed. He’s shaky.]

SAUL: You’re crazy.

RICH: I don’t need you to do my dirty work. [He takes a few steps.] Where’re my clothes? Where’d they put them?

SAUL: Get back in bed!

RICH: I want to get out of here! [He puts on his robe.] This place is a death machine! [He starts to leave but collapses on the floor.]

SAUL: [rushing to his aid] You idiot.

RICH: [catching his breath] Well, here we are again. [SAUL tries to help him back to bed.] No. Let me sit...Fuck... [He sits in chair.] “Dependent”: from the Late Latin “to hang from.”

SAUL: I tried to do what you asked me to do. Just like always.

RICH: You don’t have to apologize.

SAUL: I want you to understand something.

RICH: I understand.

SAUL: It’s important. Listen. I had made up my mind to give you half of the pills and keep the other half for myself. I was walking past Sheridan Square. It was starting to drizzle again. You’ve never seen Sheridan Square look grungier: a drunk was pissing on the pathetic little flowers. And that crazy lady—you know the one that sings off-key at the top of her lungs—she was there, too. And my favorite, the guy with his stomach out to here—

RICH: I get the picture.

SAUL: There I was walking with the pills in my pocket, contemplating our suicides. And I was getting wet and cold. As I passed the square, Seconal seemed too slow to me. You don’t have a monopoly on pain.

RICH: I never thought—

SAUL: Shut up. Anyway, I had stopped in front of the Pleasure Chest. I looked up and there in the window were sex toys and multicolored jockstraps, lit by a red neon sign. I said, “Help me, God.” Which is funny coming from an atheist, let me tell you ... I said it out loud.

RICH: And you could walk again.

SAUL: Well, it wasn’t exactly a miracle.

RICH: Thank God.

SAUL: Anyway, there I was in front of a sex shop, and I looked down and there was a puddle. Now this’ll sound stupid.

RICH: Couldn’t sound stupider than the rest.

SAUL: In this dirty little puddle was a reflection of the red neon sign. It was beautiful. And the whole street was shining with the incredible colors. They kept changing as the different signs blinked on and off... I don’t know how long I stood there. A phrase came to my head: “The Lord taketh and the Lord giveth.”

RICH: You blew your punch line.

SAUL: It’s the other way around. Anyway, there went two hundred bucks down the sewer.

RICH: Take it off your taxes.

SAUL: Don’t you see, I just don’t have the right to take your life or mine.

RICH: The Miracle of the Pleasure Chest.

SAUL: Hang in there, Rich.

RICH: Our Lady of Christopher Street.

SAUL: Maybe I’m being selfish, but I want you here. I need you.

RICH: My future isn’t exactly promising.

SAUL: I’ll take you as is.

RICH: But what happens when it gets worse? Its gonna get worse.

SAUL: I’ll be here for you no matter what happens.

RICH: Will you?

SAUL: I promise.

RICH: Shit.

SAUL: What do you want me to say?

RICH: You’re so goddamned noble.

SAUL: How do you want me to be?

RICH: I can’t afford to be noble. The only thing holding me together is rage. It’s not fair! Why me?

SAUL: Why not you? Maybe I’m next. No one knows.

RICH: I reserve the right to put an end to all this shit.

SAUL: All right, but if you kill yourself they won’t bury you in hallowed ground and you’ll go to hell with all us Jews.

RICH: I bet they have a separate AIDS section in the cemetery so I don’t infect the other corpses. [Beat, then suddenly he speaks fiercely.] Do you promise to stick with me no matter what happens?

SAUL: I do.

RICH: Do you? [He searches SAUL’s face for the answer.] I need you. [Long silence. He releases SAUL.] Paradise in a puddle.

SAUL: You couldn’t resist that, could you?

RICH: Prodigies and signs, why not? It’s the end of an era.

SAUL: What do you think’ll come next?

RICH: Next? After I’m gone?

SAUL: Don’t be maudlin. You know I didn’t mean that.

RICH: I know you didn’t... I’ve been wondering what happens after I die... Do you think things go on and on? I don’t know. Is this all the time I have? I hope not . . . Do you think anywhere out there is a place as sweet as this one? I like it here—even though right now I am going through a lot of... [searching for the word] difficulty. [He goes back to bed.] And if we get to come back, where do we get to come back to? I don’t feature leaving here and going to a goddamned naphtha swamp in the Z sector of some provincial galaxy to live as some kind of weird insect... But if life is a kind of educational process in which each piece of the universe eventually gets to discover its own true divine nature, if it is, then a methane bog on Jupiter might serve just as well as a meadow in the Berkshires... I want to be cremated and I want my ashes to fertilize the apple tree in the middle of Jake’s pasture. When you take a bite of an apple from that tree, think of me.

SAUL: You’d be the worm in it.

RICH: Saul?

SAUL: What, Rich?

RICH: There’s a café way over by Tompkins Square Park, off of B. It holds maybe ten tables and has the scuzziest art on the walls.

SAUL: What about it?

RICH: I want to read my work there.

SAUL: You turned down the Y.

RICH: People go there, gay, straight, with their weird hair and their ears pierced ninety-nine different ways, they go there late in the evening, and there’s a guitarist, and they sit there politely and listen. They look newborn, but slightly depraved. I want to read there when I get out of here. And you’ll take pictures. Okay?

SAUL: Sounds okay. Sounds good to me.

RICH: Forgive me for being such a fuck.

SAUL: You really are a fuck.

RICH: I’m a real prick.

SAUL: You’re an asshole.

RICH: You’re a faggot.

SAUL: You’re a fruit.

RICH: You know, if we took precautions...

SAUL: If what? What? You always do that.

RICH: I don’t know.

SAUL: Would you like to?

RICH: If we’re careful. Do you want to?

SAUL: I’d love to. What do you think?

RICH: I think it’d be okay.

SAUL: What’ll we do?

RICH: I don’t know. Something safe.

SAUL: We’ll think of something.

RICH: Close the curtain.

SAUL: Do you think we should?

RICH: Well, we can’t do it like this.

SAUL: Right.

RICH: Right.

SAUL: What if someone comes in?

RICH: So what?

SAUL: Right. [SAUL doesn’t move.]

RICH: So what are you waiting for?

SAUL: I’m scared.

RICH: So am I. Do you think we should?

SAUL: God, I want to.

RICH: Well, close the fucking curtain! [The HOSPICE WORKER ends the impasse by closing the curtain.] Thanks.

SAUL: Thanks. [When the curtain is completely shut, the HOSPICE WORKER walks down center.]

HOSPICE WORKER: I have a new AIDS patient. Richard. He still has a lot of denial about his condition. Which is normal. I think most of us would go crazy if we had to face our own deaths squarely. He’s a wonderful man. He writes extraordinarily funny poems about the ward. His lover’s there all the time, and he’s got a lot of friends visiting, and both families. I only hope it keeps up. It’s only his second time in the hospital. They get a lot of support at first, but as the illness goes on, the visitors stop coming—and they’re left with only me.

But something tells me it’s not going to happen in his case. You should see how his lover takes care of him. God forbid they treat Rich badly, Saul swoops down and lets them have it. He’s making a real pain in the ass of himself, which is sometimes how you have to be in this situation.

Rich should be out of the hospital again in a week or so. For a while. He’s a fighter... The angry phase is just about over and the bargaining phase is beginning. If he behaves like a good little boy, God will do what Rich tells Him to do ... I certainly hope that God does.

I don’t know anymore. Sometimes I think I’m an atheist. No. Not really. It’s more that I’m angry at God: how can He do this? [Pause.] I have a lot of denial, I am angry, and I bargain with God. I have a long way to go towards acceptance. Maybe its time for me to resign. Maybe I’m suffering from burnout.

But what would I do if I didn’t go to St. Vincent’s? And it’s a privilege to be with people when they are dying. Sometimes they tell you the most amazing things.The other night Jean-Jacques—he’s this real queen, there’s no other word for it—he told me what he misses most in the hospital is his corset and high heels. I mean he weighs all of ninety pounds and he’s half-dead. But I admire his spirit. The way they treat him. Sometimes they won’t even bring the food to his bed. And I’m afraid to complain for fear they take it out on him! Damn them! ... I’ve lost some of my idealism, as I said. Last night I painted his nails for him. [She shows the audience her vividly painted fingernails.] Flaming red. He loved it.