Philly CHEESE
My friends Patti and Joe had coffee ready in the morning. Patti went off to work and Joe, a night shift worker, bought breakfast. We hashed over hash at a Denny’s near the Interstate. Joe made a sincere contribution to the project by paying for a tank of gas without knowing whether I’d be returning that Friday night.
“I might get lucky,” I said regarding the new day in a hopeful, non-delusional manner. The old friends you cherish, because once upon a time you exchange light and share experience and trust and the mutual light still shines. It’s a rare thing.
Back in Philly, I parked in the under-belly of the hotel and took the elevator to the lobby for a coffee at the cafe and time to plan my attack. The Exhibition Hall seemed the likeliest place to corner the industry people. It was open for both a morning and an afternoon session. There were some classes that seemed interesting, but since no one else was going after money for the project, that had to be my priority. There wouldn’t be another opportunity for personal contact with so much of the industry until the next annual meeting. I had to grab business cards and pass out proposals even if most people thought the idea was a joke.
I trudged through the Exhibition Hall and systematically attempted to identify key members of each team at a booth. I told the story of the progress of the film, being totally open and honest with corporate types who had perfected their masks as attractive crash dummies—and who had probably been selected to work the shows because of general non-offensiveness and yay team spirit. I felt totally naked, bouncing from one booth to the next, not a part of anything or any group, with only a vision still evolving. And all the while, I knew that absolutely no one got it.
Craig must have sensed my isolation and by the time the morning session was finished he caught up with me. I needed air because of the suffocation I was feeling in the hotel. We walked a couple of blocks to downtown.
“I want to get this other knee replaced,” Craig said, limping across the wide streets of Philly. “The fake one doesn’t hurt.”
The fake one didn’t hurt. The knee that was a part of his body since birth was a problem, but advanced science and technology had created something that didn’t hurt, a release from the pain. Craig told me how AIDS was now dominating his life more than hemophilia, though the limp and the pain was a result of hemophilia. We had lunch at a little Italian restaurant where he had linguini and I had a Caesar Salad with anchovies. Craig gave me a list of the prime companies I should go after first so I wouldn’t be spinning my wheels through the entire weekend. If there was time I would hit them all at least twice. Craig had a double room to himself, and he offered me the other bed when he found out that I had commuted to Maryland the night before.
On our way back to the Hotel we passed a group of people handing out flyers on a street corner. The Radical spoke with compassion to all passers-by about the meeting taking place off campus about the blood contamination. It was the Committee of Ten Thousand, COTT, a group formed under the assumption that 10,000 hemophiliacs and their families had been infected with HIV. Craig was a member of the committee. One of their founding members had a class action suit pending against the pharmaceuticals and the meeting was an update. I told the Radical about the film and he volunteered his services as a sound man if we made it out to California. The Radical was severe factor VIII deficient and positive. I passed on the meeting because I thought that the film might get money from the people that they were suing. I didn’t feel that there would be any conflict of interest if I were to get money from the pharmaceuticals because we were dealing with the history of hemophilia and not just the AIDS era.
At the hotel Craig pointed out Dana Kuhn from COTT, a mild factor IX, who very seldom had to use clotting factor. He was a minister by profession. In the early eighties he hurt his ankle while playing basketball and went to a treatment center in Nashville where they infused him for his injury. He became infected with HIV and unknowingly infected his wife, who died of AIDS. He didn’t have the limp but he had the bug. I ran into the Prince, a severe factor IX with the limp, who had also unknowingly infected his wife and lost her to AIDS. Then there was smiling Dale, the severe factor IX, who had escaped the bug and had a new daughter. Six months earlier I had never knowingly met a person with hemophilia in my life. I had become obsessed with the story, unable to cope without an infusion of money to allow me to tell it as I was discovering it. I only wanted to make a film. There was no turning back. It was a material thing. It’s what I had to do—gather material.
Craig suggested that I sit in on a talk by black a woman from South Carolina who had sons with hemophilia and AIDS. There were less than eight other people in the room ranging from health-care professionals to hemophiliacs with AIDS. The woman had come to the meeting with the promise she would remain anonymous because she feared the community in which she lived in South Carolina. It was a small room and a small gathering and still she was afraid to give her real name. It was an American gathering.—AN AMERICAN VALUE.
The afternoon exhibitor session was much of the same for me, bouncing from booth to booth with the hope of hitting on that one sensitive ear. I learned that The Boss was hosting a hospitality suite and magic show that evening. I ran into October in the lobby. She remembered that I had helped her load her car weeks earlier at the Greenville conference. I told her about the magic show as she was on her way out the door for dinner.
“I like magic,” she said.
Chief Clotter, Dr. Gil White, was in the Lounge at the bar off the hotel lobby with a bevy of nurses from the hospital in North Carolina. All the tables were full and he took his scotch at the rail. It was the first time I had seen him since dinner with the King, Dr. Brinkhaus.
“How’s the movie coming?” he asked.
I was startled at first because I didn’t recognize him until he said “Clotter.”
“I think I’m dead,” I said enthusiastically with a touch of wishful thinking. “Nobody here is going to put up any money for this thing.”
“How long will it take you to complete it?” he asked pointedly. “That’s the chief concern,” he added, “would you finish it?”
“Of course I’d finish it, if the money was there,” I said seriously.
“Could you do a short film first, say less than 30 minutes, so they could see what you had in mind?” he asked sincerely.
“Sure, but it’s still going to cost about thirty thousand dollars or so to do it right. And I’m up against a blue suited stone wall.” The doctor who was wearing a blue suit.
“Don’t quit,” he said, “Be like the clinging fire.”
I took a deep breath as the Doctor and his professional harem excused themselves and disappeared through the lobby and out the front door. I moved over to where Brent and Slacker, a twenty something severe factor VIII HIV positive, were guzzling drinks at the rail. “The clinging fire,” I said.
Brad flicked a lighter and held it up to my face. “You need a light,” he said.
I pulled out a Pall Mall and sucked smoke and rubbed the amulet on my chest, deciding I’d better retire to the garage to change clothes for the evening. I had Craig’s room number but he was nowhere in sight and the garage seemed like a safer retreat than the front desk at the dinner hour.
I took the elevator down a few levels and searched for the red Stang, finding I had parked it in one of the more open spots in the garage. I stashed my Foundation satchel and found fresh khakis and a black shirt laid out in the trunk. The traffic was moderate but people seemed more concerned with finding their way through and out of the maze than watching a gray bearded man change clothes. I was so totally self-absorbed at the time I changed without hesitation or hindrance at the opened trunk of the car.
I ventured back up into the hotel and found the hospitality suite that The Boss had arranged and stoked up on shrimp and a few Gin Rickeys, returning my focus to others. I met a redhead called Sherry whose husband had had hemophilia and died of AIDS. She worked for The Boss and greeted me like a friend. I found a seat at a round table and met some people from the Northeast who felt free to use their names even though they were affected by hemophilia and AIDS. One woman who had lost several sons had written a book about how she had been lied to when the contaminated factor was distributed to the community, but she couldn’t get it published. There were so many stories, so many, so very many.
The party moved to a conference room where a stage had been set up for the magician. The Boss, a magician in his own right, performed first with the fast hands of a pickpocket and the panache of a well-liked priest. The other magician merely continued. October showed up halfway through. I took her down on South Street in the red Stang with the top down. We stopped in a little Italian restaurant and drank red wine by candle light while an opera filled the room like a liquid and October capped the day like a cherry. I spilled my glass and stained the white linen table cloth. We left after that. Cheese.