Read The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays for Free Online Page A

give a damn because it seems to be happening mostly to gay men. Who cares if a faggot dies? Does it occur to you to do anything about it. Personally?
    NED: Me?
    EMMA: Somebody’s got to do something.
    NED: Wouldn’t it be better coming from you?
    EMMA: Doctors are extremely conservative; they try to stay out of anything that smells political, and this smells. Bad. As soon as you start screaming you get treated like a nut case. Maybe you know that. And then you’re ostracized and rendered worthless, just when you need cooperation most. Take off your socks.
    ( NED ,
in his undershorts, is now sitting on the examining table.
EMMA
will now examine him, his skin particularly, starting with the bottom of his feet, feeling his lymph glands, looking at his scalp, into his mouth. . .
)
    NED: Nobody listens for very long anyway. There’s a new disease of the month every day.
    EMMA: This hospital sent its report of our first cases to the medical journals over a year ago.
The New England Journal of Medicine
has finally published it, and last week, which brought you running, the
Times
ran something on some inside page. Very inside: page twenty. If you remember, Legionnaires’ Disease, toxic-shock, they both hit the front page of the
Times
the minute they happened. And stayed there until somebody did something. The front page of the
Times
has a way of inspiring action. Lie down.
    NED: They won’t even use the word “gay” unless it’s in a direct quote. To them we’re still homosexuals. That’s like still calling blacks Negroes. The
Times
has always had trouble writing about anything gay.
    EMMA: Then how is anyone going to know what’s happening? And what precautions to take? Someone’s going to have to tell the gay population fast.
    NED: You’ve been living with this for over a year? Where’s the mayor? Where’s the Health Department?
    EMMA: They know about it. You have a Commissioner of Health who got burned with the Swine Flu epidemic, declaring an emergency when there wasn’t one. The government appropriated $150 million for that mistake. You have a mayor who’s a bachelor and I assume afraid of being perceived as too friendly to anyone gay. And who is also out to protect a billion-dollar-a-year tourist industry. He’s not about to tell the world there’s an epidemic menacing his city. And don’t ask me about the President. Is the mayor gay?
    NED: If he is, like J. Edgar Hoover, who would want him?
    EMMA: Have you had any of the symptoms?
    NED: I’ve had most of the sexually transmitted diseases the article said come first. A lot of us have. You don’t know what it’s been like since the sexual revolution hit this country. It’s been crazy, gay or straight.
    EMMA: What makes you think I don’t know? Any fever, weight loss, night sweats, diarrhea, swollen glands, white patches in your mouth, loss of energy, shortness of breath, chronic cough?
    NED: No. But those could happen with a lot of things, couldn’t they?
    EMMA: And purple lesions. Sometimes. Which is what I’m looking for. It’s a cancer. There seems to be a strange reaction in the immune system. It’s collapsed. Won’t work. Won’t fight. Which is what it’s supposed to do. So most of the diseases my guys are coming down with—and there are some very strange ones—are caused by germs that wouldn’t hurt a baby, not ababy in New York City anyway. Unfortunately, the immune system is the system we know least about. So where is this big mouth I hear you’ve got?
    NED: I have more of a bad temper than a big mouth.
    EMMA: Nothing wrong with that. Plenty to get angry about. Health is a political issue. Everyone’s entitled to good medical care. If you’re not getting it, you’ve got to fight for it. Do you know this is the only country in the industrialized world besides South Africa that doesn’t guarantee health care for everyone? Open your mouth. Turn over. One of my staff told me you were well-known in the gay world and not afraid to say