The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays (28 page)

I stopped going to psychoanalysts. I’d analyzed, observed, regurgitated, parsed, declined, X-rayed, and stared down every action, memory, dream, recollection, thought, instinct, and deed, from every angle I’d been able to come up with.

(
NED
pulls hack the curtain and gets into bed. He reconnects himself to the tubing.
)

I spent many years looking for love—in the very manner I’d criticized. How needy man is. And with good reason. When I finally met someone, I was middle-aged. His name was Felix Turner. Eleven months later he was sick and nineteen months later he was dead. I had spent so many years looking for and preparing for and waiting for Felix. Just as he came into my arms and just as I was about to say “I love you, Felix,” the plague came along and killed him. And the further away I’ve got from the love I had, the more I question I ever had it in the first place.

Ben invested my money wisely and I am rich. When I get angry with him for not joining me in fighting this plague, he points out that he has made me financially independent so I could afford to be an activist. Ben has made all the Weeks family, including Rena and his children, rich. That’s what he wanted to do—indeed I believe that’s been his mission in life—to give all of us what he and I never had as children—and he’s accomplished it.

(
BEN
stands in the Eden Heights apartment, smoking a cigar. Scattered cartons and packing crates.
)

NED:
Did you ever think you’d spend one more night in Eden Heights?

BEN:
I consider it one of the greatest achievements of my life that I got out of here alive.

NED:
Don’t you ever stop and think how far we’ve come?

BEN:
No. Never.

(
RENA
is on the phone. She is now almost ninety.
BEN
sits in a chair and reads a business magazine.
)

RENA:
(
Loudly.
) I’m coming home! I’ll be there tomorrow! Back with all you dear chums I’ve loved since childhood! I can hardly wait! (
Hangs up.
) The woman’s deaf. Paula’s deaf and Nettie’s moved to an old people’s kibbutz in Israel and Belle is blind and Lydia’s dead. Belle’s husband brought you both into this world. Lydia introduced me to Richard. She didn’t want him. (
Starts rummaging in a carton.
) All our past—in one battered carton from the Safeway. Aah, I’m going to throw it all away.

NED:
No, I want it. It’s our history.

RENA:
Some history. So you can dredge up more unhappy memories to tell a psychiatrist how much you hated your father.

NED:
(
To
BEN
.) Don’t you want to take anything for a memento?

BEN:
You’re the family historian. I leave the past to you.

NED:
Your West Point letters, your yearbooks. . .

BEN:
I’ve burned the mortgage. You’re the one with the passion for remembering.

NED:
Is that the way we handle it? I remember and you don’t?

BEN:
Maybe so. Maybe you’ve hit the nail on the head, young brother.

RENA:
(
Comes across
RICHARD’
s watch chain.
) He was Phi Beta Kappa and Law Journal. He majored in Greek and Latin. They didn’t let many Jews into Yale in those days. You would have thought he’d have done better.

NED:
Both brothers such failures. Uncle Leon wound up broke, hanging around the Yale Club trying to bum loans off old Yalies. I could never understand why you paid for his funeral.

BEN:
He wasn’t such a bad guy.

RENA:
Aunt Judith threw him out when she discovered all his bimbos.

BEN:
Some old judge I met told me, “If only Leon had been castrated instead of circumcised, he’d have wound up on the Supreme Court.”

RENA:
I’ve lived in this room for over fifty years. We moved down here on a three-month temporary job. Some man had almost burned to death and they needed a new one fast. The poor chap died and the job was Richard’s. (
Comes across the navy blue crocheted purse and pulls out the letters and tries to read them.
)

NED:
Ah, the famous letters. (
Knows them by heart.
) “I find my schedule will perhaps bring me into the vicinity of New York on 4th May; might you be available for luncheon?”

RENA:
That was at Delmonico’s.

NED:
“I find I must reschedule; will you be available instead on the 10th inst.?” “It now appears the 10th must be replaced by the
20th and even this is not firm.” Why did I think they were so romantic?

RENA:
They were romantic. They are romantic.

NED:
Maybe you’ll meet another man at the home.

RENA:
It’s called an adult residence. I don’t want to meet another man. One was enough. I always thought Richard was inadequate. I just never had the guts to really leave him. It’s no great crime to choose security over passion. My grand passion was the two of you. (
To
BEN
.) You have the wonderful wife and the wonderful marriage and have given me my wonderful grandchildren. (
To
NED
.) You have the artistic talent, which you inherited from me. Hurry up and write whatever it is you’re going to write about me so I can get through all the pain it’ll no doubt cause me.

NED:
Why do you automatically assume it will be painful?

RENA:
Knowing you it will be. I want to show you something. (
Goes into her bedroom.
)

BEN:
We can’t die. We’re indestructible. We have her genes inside us. Sara called. Timmy has to have an operation. But then it should he fine. His bleeding will stop. Finally. All these years we blamed ourselves. It wasn’t bad parenting. It wasn’t psychosomatic. It was genetic. Ulcerated nerve ends, not dissimilar to what Richard must have had.

NED:
I’m glad. Genetic. That’s what they say now about homosexuality. In a few more minutes the Religious Right is going to turn violently Pro-Choice.

BEN:
Now if Betsy wouldn’t keep falling for all these wretched young men who treat her so terribly.

NED:
Yes, that’s a tough one.

BEN:
But I’ve found her the best therapist I could find.

NED:
Her very own first therapist.

BEN:
We learned how to attack problems and not be defeated by them. We found the tools to do this, probably by luck and the accident of history. Rena and Richard didn’t. For them it was more about missed opportunities. It was the wrong time for them and it hasn’t been for us.

NED:
For you.

BEN:
Ned, you’re not going to die. Tell Rena I’ll be here with the car in the morning at nine sharp.

(
RENA
comes back dressed in the Russian peasant clothing.
)

NED:
How
did
we get out of here alive?

BEN:
A lot of expensive therapy. (
Sneaks out.
)

RENA:
I wore this when I got off the boat from Russia.

NED:
You were two years old when you got off the boat from Russia. (
Pause.
) I wore it, too.

RENA:
You never wore this.

NED:
Daddy beat me up for it.

RENA:
Oh, he did not. He never laid a finger on you. How can you say such an awful thing? How about giving us one tiny little bit of credit while I’m still alive.

NED:
Mom. . . aren’t you afraid of dying?

(
HANNIMAN
comes in to take a sample of
NED’
s blood.
)

RENA:
Of course I’m frightened. Who isn’t? What time is it? My friends are throwing me a farewell party. I see your brother left without saying good-bye. It’s as if he’s punishing me. He thinks I never notice. You think I don’t know how you both treat me with such disdain? So many of my friends have kids who never see them at all. So I guess I must consider myself fortunate. You’ll never guess what happened. I called Drew Keenlymore! He’s listed in Vancouver. His very first words to me were, “My dear, I called every Weeks in the New York directory trying to find you.” He tried to find me. He tried to find me. (
Re:
HANNIMAN
.) What is she doing?

NED:
A blood test.

RENA:
Is my son going to be all right?

NED:
My mother, Mrs. Weeks. Nurse Hanniman.

HANNIMAN:
What a kind, pleasant, thoughtful, considerate son you have. I’m so enjoying taking care of him.

NED:
Nurse Hanniman and I enjoy a rare bonding.

(
HANNIMAN
leaves.
)

Momma . . . you may outlive me.

RENA:
Don’t say that. My momma was ninety-five years old when she died. She was withered beyond recognition. She was in a crib, mewling, wetting her pants, not knowing anyone, and me trying not to vomit from the putrid smell of urine and her runny stools. She simply would not let go. This old people’s
home had taken her every last cent for this tiny crib, for no nurse to come and wipe her. I wiped her. I came every day. I sat beside her. She didn’t know who I was. My own mother. I’ll bet you won’t do all that for me. People stick articles under my door. “Your son’s sick with that queer disease.” “I saw your pervert son on TV saying homosexuals are the same as everyone else.” Then, in our current events class we had a report on all the progress that’s been made and how much your activists had to do with it and all the women came over and congratulated me. I don’t know why, after ninety years, I’m surprised by anything.

NED:
There hasn’t been any progress.

RENA:
Of course there has. Alexander. . .

NED:
Yes, Momma?

RENA:
He’s dead. Drew Keenlymore is dead. I planned a trip to British Columbia, to Banff and Lake Louise, and I called to let him know I was going to be in the vicinity and he’s gone and died. I guess we couldn’t expect him to wait around for me forever, could we?

NED:
No, Momma. I’m sorry.

RENA:
Good-bye, darling. It’s a long trip back. And I’m having trouble with my tooth. Every time I say good-bye I’m never sure I’m going to see you again. Give me a kiss.

(
They kiss.
NED
hugs her as best he can with his arms connected to the tubing.
)

NED:
(
As she begins to leave.
) I wouldn’t be a writer if you guys hadn’t done what you did.

RENA:
Is that something else I’m meant to feel guilty for?

NED:
I love being a writer.

RENA:
At last.

(
RENA
walks off, slowly, holding on to things. She is almost blind.

HANNIMAN
enters, with
DR. DELLA VIDA
,
no longer in official uniform, and takes another blood test.
)

NED:
Another one? Why am I having another one so quickly? What happened at the White house? What did
he
say?

TONY:
They’re cutting our budget.

NED:
Your buddy. Is it too pushy of me to inquire as to my and/or your progress?

TONY:
We have a fifty-fifty chance.

NED:
That’s your idea of progress?

TONY:
You’re not only pushy, you’re . . . how do your people say it—a kvetch? Just imagine this is the cure and you’re the first person getting it.

NED:
Can I also imagine the Republicans never being reelected?

HANNIMAN:
He’d never work again.

TONY:
Oh, I’ll find a way. (
Leaves.
)

NED:
Did the mouth of Weeks cause a little friction in the house of Della Vida?

HANNIMAN:
Congratulations. You’re my last patient.

NED:
Where are you going?

HANNIMAN:
To raise my baby. And be a pushy kvetch wife.

NED:
How come?

HANNIMAN:
It’s somebody else’s turn now. I think you can identify with that.

NED:
Good luck.

HANNIMAN:
You, too. Sweet dreams.

(
She turns out the lights and leaves.

Darkness.
NED
is tossing and turning.
)

NED:
(
Screaming out.
) Ben!

BEN:
(
Lying on a cot next to him.
) I’m here, Ned.

NED:
Ben?

BEN:
Yes, Ned.

NED:
I’m scared.

BEN:
It’s all right. Go to sleep.

NED:
Ben, I love you.

BEN:
I love you, too.

NED:
I can’t say it enough. It’s funny, but life is very precious now.

BEN:
Why’s it funny? I understand, and it is for me, too. A colleague of mine with terminal cancer went into his bathroom last week and blew his brains out with a shotgun.

(
Dawn is breaking outside.
BEN
gets up. He throws some cold water on his face at the sink.
)

NED:
Hey, cheer me up, Lemon.

BEN:
They haven’t struck us out yet.