COCKEYED PERSPECTIVE
The drive north through the mountains gave me the opportunity to digest the great meal I had partaken. After months of working with Brent and reading about the “Royal Disease” everything suddenly looked different. My focus had brought me face to face at work and at play with the community that was a mystery. They had been devastated over ten years earlier by HIV both psychologically and physically because others hadn’t been paying attention or simply didn’t give a good duck’s ass whether they lived or died.
Dr. Aledort, a former president of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee for the National Foundation was quoted in the Philadelphia Enquirer on September 2, 1983 regarding the Essex Study on HTLV-III: “Just another example of hemophiliacs being exposed to another virus.”
The King, Dr. Brinkhaus had recommended Aledort for the job. The King, Dr. Brinkhaus had said in his interview with Susan Resnik in the 90s that he had ZERO tolerance for the sacrificing of human life because of something that had happened to a cab driver in the 1930s but Aledort thought it was acceptable to have a contaminated blood supply. Donor screening and purification processes didn’t begin until 1985.
The vision thing in the film depended on a firm objectivity. The facts. The politics of the AIDS era were only a part of the story. The King, Dr. Brinkhaus was beginning to appear a better candidate for the narrative thread than Brent who hadn’t come onto this earth until 1967—the year factor concentrates opened up a whole new world to hemophiliacs, and then bit them.
I was looking forward to meeting The Prince. Brent had spoken to him about the project but my only contact with him had been the phone call to set up the meeting. Brent had told me that The Prince was a black man, factor IX deficient and HIV positive. The Prince was the lobbyist for the National Foundation. He had been married and unknowingly had infected his wife with HIV. She died of AIDS. Many wives had become infected by hemophiliac husbands, just as many children had been infused with HIV by their mothers.
I stopped at a pay phone and called Muffy’s mother to cancel the appointment I had made for the next day. Muffy answered the phone.
“I had an appointment with your mom for tomorrow. I’m not going to make it so I thought I should call and cancel.” I said.
“You owe me money,” she said.
“Huh?” I asked.
“You owe me money,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I took the weekend off,” she said.
“The first rule of being successful in business is you gotta show up for work.”
“You didn’t call me,” she said.
“And you didn’t call me,” I said.
“You owe me money.” she said.
“Please tell your mother that I have to cancel our appointment for tomorrow.”
“You owe me two hundred and thirty dollars,” she said.
“Huh?” I said, “I think I have to say bye here.”
“You owe me money,” she said.
“I’m not hanging up on you, I’m saying good-bye.”
It dawned on me how fortunate I was that I had made the trip alone. I had to keep my enthusiasm in check. Ugh.
I visited with friends and family in Maryland while waiting for the Tuesday meeting with The Prince in D.C. It had taken me over, the blood thing. Blood was all I could talk about with anyone who wasn’t directly connected to the blood thing, blood. I also visited the fascist water man and got another payment. He expressed satisfaction that the boy had died and that he had hired someone else to run the territory at the beach. The boy had been stealing from him, he said.
“Why didn’t you fire him?” I asked.
“He was a relative.” he said.
We both felt badly for the man who had lost a son, but it didn’t take away from the anger toward the son who had failed to perform his work. We sat in the office and tried to make peace, looking for a way out of hating someone because he’d cost us money, not to mention that I held the poor fool partially responsible for my lost education.
I saw the boy’s father and said I was sorry.