Free Bad Connections by Joyce Johnson Page A

benches—women of every age and description.
    Distracting myself from the business at hand by pretending I was more a sociologist than a patient, I studied my fellow afflicted—the tense young student in the corner biting her lips as she bent over her French grammar; the grandmotherly woman with Clairol-red hair, stolidly crocheting; the model in pants suit with perfectly matched accessories; the weary mother anxiously keeping track of the three small children who accompanied her—and across the room from me, clinging to each other in a highly wrought-up state, two young women I recognized from the few times Fred had taken me to Max’s Kansas City, who had been described to me as “making all the parties,” as well as being frequently written up in the “scenes” column of the Village Voice. In the fluorescent light of the clinic, they looked like two bedraggled night birds, their vintage patchwork finery fluttering limply around their bare skinny thighs, their drugged, painted eyes wide with apprehension as they awaited the results of their tests.
    The disease, I reflected, was a great equalizer, cutting across all distinctions of class. (I was sure Conrad would be interested in that particular observation.) It was entirely possible one could sit next to a perfect stranger who had been a crucial link in the chain of one’s own infection.
    Perhaps unjustly, I studied the girls from Max’s with special interest, making certain speculations as to their circle of acquaintanceship. One of them glanced across the room at me with a bemused look that indicated I might have seemed somewhat familiar—but where … ? She looked away again quickly, desiring eye contact as little as I did. I took out some proofs I’d brought with me and listened for my name.
    It is her ability to create distance that carries her through many a trying situation. In her twenties, she had worried, even anguished over this tendency to absent the Me at various crucial moments—thus possibly denying herself the full range of human experience. Now she suspects that certain varieties of experience are simply not worth having.
    Where is the value in this present one, for example?
    The recognition of the extent of the insidious corruption whose outward manifestation is this spreading disease that is nothing if not social?
    Conrad often criticizes her for leading an all too privatized existence, for living somewhat aloof from the great social movements of her time. Now she is caught up against her will in this one—and so, by implication, is he.
    â€œWould you mind letting us have a list of your contacts?” the special investigator asks (after she has been examined, pronounced positive and dosed with penicillin). He indicates to her the appropriate spaces on the yellow form where names are to be filled in. He is an ordinary bland young man who could just as well have become an insurance agent or a bank teller. She wonders what quirk of fate has led him into this unusual branch of the Civil Service.
    For a moment she hesitates, confronting the moral issue raised by this unexpected extension of the honor system.
    â€œI have no contacts,” she lies—which the young investigator accepts in perfect faith, since the fact that the disease has in a sense come to her honestly, through her husband, indicates a certain respectability.
    He even blushes a little, explaining that this is just a routine question, since it is the practice of the department to follow up all leads relating to contacts, notifying same to report for immediate examination and treatment.
    â€œOf course,” she says pleasantly, handing the form with its unfilled spaces back to him. She knows instinctively that countless others have automatically committed this identical act of civil disobedience. No wonder the disease has flourished. There are areas in human affairs from which the state must be excluded at all costs.
    She will