Free The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays by Larry Kramer Page A

like . . . Don’t you understand?
    BEN: No, I don’t understand.
    NED: You’ve got to say it. I’m the same as you. Just say it. Say it!
    BEN: No, you’re not. I can’t say it.
    NED: (
He is heartbroken.
) Every time I lose this fight it hurts more. I don’t want to have lunch. I’ll see you. (
He starts out.
)
    BEN: Come on, Lemon, I still love you. Sarah loves you. Our children. Our cat. Our dog . . .
    NED: You think this is a joke!
    BEN: (
Angry.
) You have my love and you have my legal advice and my financial supervision. I can’t give you the courage to stand up and say to me that you don’t give a good healthy fuck what I think. Please stop trying to wring some admission of guilt out of me. I am truly happy that you’ve met someone. It’s about time. And I’m sorry your friends are dying . . .
    NED: If you’re so sorry, join our honorary board and say you’re sorry out loud!
    BEN: My agreeing you were born just like I was born is not going to help save your dying friends.
    NED: Funny—that’s exactly what I think will help save my dying friends.
    BEN: Ned—you can be gay and you can be proud no matter what I think. Everybody is oppressed by somebody else in some form or another. Some of us learn how to fight back, with or without the help of others, despite their opinions, even those closest to us. And judging from this mess your friends are in, it’s imperative that you stand up and fight to be prouder than ever.
    NED: Can’t you see that I’m trying to do that? Can’t your perverse ego proclaiming its superiority see that I’m trying to be proud? You can only find room to call yourself normal.
    BEN: You make me sound like I’m the enemy.
    NED: I’m beginning to think that you and your straight world are our enemy. I am furious with you, and with myself and with every goddamned doctor who ever told me I’m sick and interfered with my loving a man. I’m trying to understand why nobody wants to hear we’re dying, why nobody wants to help, why my own brother doesn’t want to help. Two million dollars—for a house! We can’t even get twenty-nine cents from the city. You still think I’m sick, and I simply cannot allow that any longer. I will not speak to you again until you accept me as your equal. Your healthy equal. Your brother! (
He runs out.
)
Scene 7
    NED’
s apartment.
FELIX ,
working on an article, is spread out on the floor with books, note pad, comforter, and pillows.
NED
enters, eating from a pint of ice cream.
    NED: At the rate I’m going, no one in this city will be talking to me in about three more weeks. I had another fight with Bruce today. I slammed the phone down on him. I don’t know why I do that—I’m never finished saying what I want to, so I just have to call him back, during which I inevitably work myself up into another frenzy and hang up on him again. That poor man doesn’t know what to do with me. I don’t think people like me work at Citibank.
    FELIX: Why can’t you see what an ordinary guy Bruce is? I know you think he has hidden qualities, if you just give him plant food he’ll grow into the fighter you are. He can’t. All he’s got is a lot of good-looking Pendleton shirts.
    NED: I know there are better ways to handle him. I just can’t seem to. This epidemic is killing friendships, too. I can’t even talk to my own brother. Why doesn’t he call me?
    FELIX: There’s the phone.
    NED: Why do I always have to do the running back?
    FELIX: All you ever eat is desserts.
    NED: Sugar is the most important thing in my life. All the rest is just to stay alive.
    FELIX: What was the fight about?
    NED: Which fight?
    FELIX: Bruce.
    NED: Pick a subject.
    FELIX: How many do you know now?
    NED: Forty . . . dead. That’s too many for one person to know. Curt Morgan, this guy I went to Yale with, just died.
    FELIX: Emerick Nolan—he gave me my first job on the
Washington Post.
    NED: Bruce is getting paranoid: now his lover, Albert, isn’t feeling well. Bruce is