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I made trips between the lab in Rockville and Dominic Bono’s house, being nothing more than a courier, and then the word came down that the hearing on the Ricky Ray Relief Act, which was to compensate HIV positive hemophiliacs $125,000 each, would be held at the Sam Rayburn Building on a day in September.

A week before the hearing and after a couple of thousand miles of driving I received an “answer print” on a Friday afternoon, the day before the annual meeting at Camp Carefree in Greensboro for the North Carolina Hemophilia group. I called the King, Dr. Brinkhaus and we set up a screening for Sunday at the hospital. On Friday night, I drove to Carolina, stayed in a cheap motel and picked up a projector at a rental house in Raleigh on Saturday morning, before driving to Greensboro for a screening for the group of thirty people. I carried a screen and a speaker along with the projector. Two women ran out of the room quickly after the film had ended. I didn’t know why. I had looked at it well over a hundred times by then.

There was still not enough money to pay for everything. I had a video transfer scheduled for that Wednesday, the day before the Ricky Ray hearing. I desperately wanted a print for the hearing. People were coming from around the country to get their day in court before the chairman of the committee who had expressed that he really didn’t give a good duck’s ass. He didn’t know what hemophilia was. I drove back to Wilmington on Saturday to check on the house, my first trip home since Hurricane Fran. A fifty foot tree had fallen in the back yard, but it missed everything. On Saturday night I screened the film for the production assistant and a couple of other people. There were some rough spots but I knew the lab would take care of them, if I could get the money.

On Sunday I drove to Chapel Hill and had a screening for the King, Dr. Brinkhaus and two other doctors and staff. I asked them for ten thousand dollars so I could pay for a few more things. After the screening I drove back to DC where I turned in the answer print so corrections could be made. I faxed the King the details of the post production expenses that I needed the money for. I called later in the day and another assistant said it was out of her hands. I called the doctor at home and he told me to call another doctor who had been at the screening, who said yes. We arranged for the check to be Fed Exed to my home office where Chanter was to pick up the check and deposit it in the account which was over- drawn if anyone tried to cash their checks before then. By Tuesday it hadn’t arrived and on Wednesday the transfer to video was accomplished with all of its related expenses. I walked out of the lab on Wednesday evening with three video copies complete with titles and credits and a fresh corrected print. I wrote checks.

On Thursday morning I drove from Baltimore to DC early to find a parking space and get my bearings. The hearing was to begin at 9:00 a.m. I had arranged to pick up Turtle and his Mom at the train station at 9:30 a.m., which I did by taxi. When we arrived at the hearing room there was a line waiting to get into the packed room. The Prince was outside and he pointed us out to a woman who ushered us up to the front. I pushed Turtle in his wheel chair. The hearings got a late start and several members of the committee didn’t show up but a Congressman from Florida, Representative Porter Goss was there. Congressman Porter Goss along with Senators Robert Graham of Florida and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts in 1993 had requested that Secretary of Health and Human Services open an investigation into the events leading to the contamination of the blood supply with HIV. The Ricky Ray Relief Bill was introduced July of 1995 and was being held up in committee. Porter Goss spoke eloquently in favor of the Bill. He stayed for the hearing which consisted of a pat hand of experts and only a few members of the community. On the first break the Congressman from Florida walked to where Turtle and I were backed against a wall.

“Excuse me, Senator,” I said. “We produced a film that may help.”

I reached down into a bag and held out a 16mm print. He stopped and looked at Turtle who laughed and then caught himself.

“And you think I should show this to the committee, right,” the Congressman said.

“Sure.” I answered.

He took the print of the film out of my hands and turned it over to his assistant, the woman who had ushered us to the front of the room. They called me later and got a VHS copy and returned the 16MM reel.

After the hearing I drove to Baltimore where I called Chanter and learned that the check from the doctors hadn’t arrived yet. I called the other doctor to get a tracking number.

“I tried to call you last night,” he said. “You’ve been putting too much pressure on us. We’ve changed our minds.”

“Doctor,” I said, “What do you mean you’ve changed your minds?”

“We wish you luck, but it’s not for us,” he said.

“Doctor,” I said calmly, “I have just now come from a hearing in Washington where I put a print of the film in the hands of a Senator–A print that isn’t paid for. I have thousands of dollars of checks out there that will bounce. I will have to call the Senator and ask for that print back because a couple of doctors have reneged on a deal.”

“You seem to be in quite a pickle,” he said. “I’ll make a phone call.”

I called and asked the lab to hold our checks for a couple of days. I called the office of the doctor on Friday and learned the check had been cut and sent. I returned to the lab on Friday and picked up the remaining prints and returned to Carolina where I dropped off a copy of the print to Stephen Pemberton and returned home. By Wednesday most of the ten thousand dollars had been spent to pay for the film. The remaining cash went to repay Chanter and some back rent to Saint. I was broke.

By the National Meeting in San Diego a few weeks later, where a screening at the opening session had been arranged, I got six hundred dollars from an old friend for the trip out. Brent and Dale and the Roman would be there, Dana Kuhn and the Black Prince Val Bias and the Boss and even Agnes Ofgod. I’d meet Susan Resnik for the first time, and get to dance with Laureen Kelley again. The entire hemophilia industry would be there and I was hoping to get some money for distribution of the short film, and maybe funding for the feature length documentary on the history of hemophilia. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for the car or for gas for the ride back. And the phone bill was still overdue.

On Monday morning, a few days before the meeting, I picked up a brand new Cavalier from Triangle, went by the blood place and sold 880 ml of plasma, and then headed west. I had gotten Fish’s new address in the middle of the state from Gastro and dropped in on him. I pulled up to a house with white columns. I knocked on the door and Fish answered, wearing an apron and holding a very large spoon. He invited me into the kitchen where he was cooking dinner before Chips got home from work. He was watching a soap opera. He watched the video copy of the film and he gave me twenty dollars for gas and a bowl of duck soup. I made it to Amarillo on Route 66 by Wednesday morning.

Rupert sang, “A chicken fried steak for breakfast

At the Blue Front Diner, And nothing could be finer, With a thousand miles to go.”

Hey Diddle Diddle

Let’s Tango a Little

The Little Girls Danced to a Tune

The Woman Still Lived to Die for the Sport

And Duda’s Still Truckin’ Too Soon

I felt obligated to show the cut to the people who were in the film, so I drove back to Carolina on Sunday evening to get an early start on Monday morning. I circled the state and dropped in on Clark Gable and Van Johnson. Van was there and I showed him the cut of the tape, blemishes and all. He made a phone call and the next day they sent us three thousand dollars more. We needed work prints and other stuff that Dominic Bono had requested to make sure that everything was right. I called Dana Kuhn and said that the film would help their cause in the Ricky Ray Relief Act which was being held up in the immigration and claims subcommittee by a Congressman from Texas. COTT, Committee of Ten Thousand sent a thousand dollars. Another group promised a thousand. We were still short. Film is expensive. I paid a thousand dollars toward a phone bill and there was still an outstanding balance.

Dominic Bono introduced me to Miguel of Miguel Titles in Reston, Virginia for titles for the film. I gave him a disc and a printout of everyone I could remember I had contact with in the making of the film leaving out Doctor Brinkhaus because we spoke of him glowingly in the film since he was the King and his modesty requested he remain low key; we had no desire to overdue it at his request. There went another twelve hundred dollars even though our titles were simple. Hurricane Fran hit in Wilmington and I bounced a check to Colorlab because the money was slow in being transferred with Chanter’s help in Wilmington while I ran with the Yankees. Colorlab though they were keeping busy with HOMICIDE:LIFE ON THE STREETS being filmed in Baltimore at the time, left hate mail on my voice mail, even though I had warned them of the delay and asked they hold the check for a minute because of a FUCKING HURRICANE. They said everything was all right once the check cleared, but I began to look at them as warily as they were looking at me. I had to finish the job. I tried to have the sound mixed in Wilmington but there was no real post production in Wilmington. Dominic Bono put me on to Nelson Funk of Rodel Audio back in Georgetown, and someone there mixed the sound and made a mag. I never met Nelson. I was getting more of an education in film than I could ever have expected in school. When I was in DC, I dropped by to see the Prince and showed him a copy of the tape.

“This can make a difference,” he said. “I’ll try to get it shown in San Diego at the National meeting.”

”You gotta do what I tell you or you’re gonna have problems,” came the voice over the telephone. I was still walking through the woods as a babe with eyes opened in awe of everything I came upon. I thought I should trust this voice that sounded as though it had one of those long drooping mustaches and a pony tail. Dominic Bono was the film cutter. He claimed to be Congressman Sonny Bono’s cousin of Sonny and Cher fame. But the voice–there was very little suaveness to his voice; he munched his words before spitting them out. He was recommended because he was the chief film cutter for National Geographic Films and was a bit wary of the coming digital revolution that he knew would change the film world greatly.

“Film cutters are very anal,” Chanter had warned me.

That seemed to be one of the catch phrases of pop psyche that everyone had latched onto. I mentioned this to Dominic and his answer was, “She thinks I’m an asshole, huh?”

“I don’t think she meant it that way, Dominic,” I told him.

“I don’t care. Just do exactly what I tell you.” Dominic Bono said.

I told him that we had a session lined up with an Avid at a local TV station in Wilmington to get together a cut list. At the time Dominic was having a new roof put on his house in Vienna, Virginia. The roofers had screwed up and the roof still leaked.

“Do they know what they’re doin’ down nair?” he said passionately. “Look at my roof. I just paid coupla thousand for a new roof and it still leaks and they wanta charge me to fix it again. I told them fuck that shit, they’re supposed to know what they’re doin’ that’s why I paid them in the first place. They’re coming back to fix it. That’s why you gotta be careful in the edit and have people who know what they’re doing.”

“The machine does the work, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“It’s the conversions, you gotta be careful of the conversions, like a converted Christian it can screw everybody up. Nothin’s in sync,” he said observantly.

I arranged a conference call for Dominic and the TV editor and myself and it turned out that the kid had never edited for film.

“See, what’d I tell ya. I gotta guy,” he said and then recommended another editor, Mike Ritter in Georgetown.

I had been hoping to save money on the editing, especially because the TV station was a bike ride from my house. But after the conference call I had my doubts. A day later after talking to the production manager at the station and failing to get him to come down on his rate, even though it was a worthwhile project, when the production manager of the NBC affiliate said that video and film are exactly the same, I followed Dominic Bono’s advice.

I had rented a combination TV/VCR and had been going over the VHS copy of the raw footage, making a rough cut list by time code that had been burned into the tape just as I had done with the tai-chi video where I had twenty hours to view and mark up. The film was less than an hour of raw footage. I worked on this for a week while continuing to raise money to complete the project, before it was time to head north for the editing session in Georgetown with Dominic’s colleague Mike Ritter who also played stand up base in a musical group called the Travelers.

I hadn’t been to Georgetown in Washington since the late 70s, on a drunk with a guy named Maxwell Mount where we had snifters of Rusty Nails in Clyde’s while I was hunting for a woman I was in love with who had run off with a woman. It brought back a great many memories sitting at the sidewalk cafe sipping coffee and munching on a bagel while I waited for Mike Ritter to show up. We had agreed on the price of a thousand dollars for his efforts. I was early. The coffee shop hadn’t been there during the lesbian stalking episode, but it wouldn’t have mattered, we would have gone for the Rusty Nails anyway. It was a different time in a different space. Bloody ended in Mary and driving drunk was a lifestyle choice that a lot of people overlooked unless you were really trashed. We didn’t know no better. Our heads were up our own anus. And we fucked any chick that didn’t have a dick. HIV was only lurking there, wherever it had come from, whether from a monkey or a laboratory, it was staking out its territory, waiting to strike.

I found the little castle near the C&O Canal where Mike Ritter had his tiny studio and found that he had gotten there while I was off reminiscing. We were both on time. The morning was a bit rough with Mike distracted by other work, but I just plugged away until lunch. I read my numbers and he punched them in. Finally, he called lunch and we went to Clyde’s. I told him the story about the Rusty Nails and when we returned to the machine things began to click. We worked until after midnight and came up with a cut. There were no titles, but I had gotten what I had wanted and he had given what he was capable of. I went to my brother’s bar in Baltimore in time for last call. On Sunday I went sailing with some friends in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. I knew that there wasn’t money to complete the rest of the project, but now I had something to show and to work with and sell.

Bertha brushed through Wilmington and I watched her through the kitchen windows. The braced 12 feet high sunflowers made it through most of the storm, but finally gave way and bowed down to nature. The garden had been abundant but the consistent high winds tangled vines and changed serenity to turmoil. A few limbs fell in the back yard. The screened-in front porch got a good soaking during the storm. But the home place was pretty secure. The electric went out for five days but the phones stayed intact so I could still do my work.

After speaking to all of the participants in the film we decided to shoot for the last Thursday of the month at the home of Kathy and Charley Register in Durham. The Real George McCoy was scheduled to have an elbow replaced, so I called Henry Jones and he agreed to fill in. This meant a little more script work since we were going for a factual short documentary with words fitting the characters. Henry was a black man which suited me fine for what we were trying to say about a blood deficiency that happened regardless of racial or national or religious boundaries, like a universal wind that happened in the gene pool.

Chanter ordered three more rolls of film on her credit card, and I called Agnes Ofgod who agreed to send a few more hundred dollars so I could drive around the state and make certain that everyone was ready. We only had one day to shoot.

After a blood donation I rode my bicycle up to the Englishman’s shop to make sure everything was set for the 25^th. The manager told me he had sent their only 16mm camera to the Olympics. “They had money,” he said. I was struck down by the wind; the joke had been on me all the time. When I got home I called back to make certain what I heard was correct.

Madame Carlotta gave me the Englishman’s number in England and I called him.

“I gave you my word,” Joe Dutton said, “you’ll have a camera on the 25^th.”

He gave me his word. The sound of his voice instilled a glimmer of hope like a drink of cool spring water. It wouldn’t have mattered one way or another to him whether this film happened or not. A multi-billion dollar industry that served the hemophilia community had all but ignored the project. A man who loved film finally said, “I gave you my word.” And I knew it was gold. He had an Arri 16mm camera flown into Wilmington Airport the day before the shoot.

On Friday I took a car for a week planning to return it the following Friday after the film shoot. I visited Clark and Van and said that we had a go, but we needed money to work with. I needed a week to work with everyone without having to scurry for money. They agreed to send two thousand dollars through the fiscal sponsor and would talk about more at their meeting at the end of the month. Susan Resnik, the Jewish mother that she was, said that she would send a hundred dollars for food for the day. And Chanter and I drove over to Durham to check out the house for the production.

I spent the next few days driving around the state meeting with everyone and asking them the questions that they would be asked on camera. This was good. They became enthusiastic, prepared and flexible. There wasn’t time to get someone to do Richard Atwood’s part, so I did it. Even BG showed up on time to go to market and pick up the deli trays I had ordered for lunch. Everyone did their job well and production went smoothly. The Registers supplied the red wine for our metaphoric transition, the last film setup of the day close to midnight. We shot 2160 feet of film, a little over five rolls, about 57 minutes. Joe Dutton gave us at his expense Derrick Mayhew who worked with Christine Chanter Leahy with the camera setup and everything else. I paid Sound, Larry Long, and Lights, Bryan Hoffman a lot less than they were worth but what we had negotiated because it was a worthwhile project. Chanter and a production assistant, Dylan Patterson, who was as much of a professional as anyone there, worked for the day without pay. After cutting checks I knew I had to short change someone, apologetically it was the makeup guy, Jason Myers, who spent the entire day with the unpaid cast waiting while the rain poured outside, off and on and off, making his job a bit more difficult. He should have shot me but the hardware people had to take precedence because of the equipment invested. I had to justify. It had only taken fifteen months of perseverance, thousands of dollars in phone calls and thousands of miles of driving to get to that point, and well over a hundred rejections, some soft and some hard.

I kept up the assault on Clark Gable and Van Johnson. They never said no, but they didn’t agree to any immediate funding either.

“Call me next week,” Clark said.

I began trying old friends, asking everyone for money. I got a few leads that only cost time and money. I sent proposals to a rock star and a major movie producer. Chanter sent a package to a movie star; Channel 4 in England turned us down. I learned of a board meeting for the North Carolina hemophilia group, and a picnic that Turtle’s mom was hosting at their lake home. I made it a point to attend because Turtle had stopped taking my calls. Dale and the Roman and Parnelly and Wayne were there. Dale’s wife grilled me as though I were running a scam. I knew that my fiscal sponsor was losing faith. I met Turtle’s sister and his nephew who also had hemophilia, severe factor VIII. The little kid had a port in his chest for his infusions. Turtle didn’t come out of the house the entire day. The meds were kicking his ass. I got to sit inside with him for a while though, and he was willing to do the film. I thought of Craig when we talked about it, and how willing he was up until the very end. I just didn’t know.

Chanter decided to go into real estate, just like that.

“I’m going to make a lot of money and buy my own camera,” she said.

I wasn’t exactly riding Secretariat, but I was following my bliss so to speak. A few dollars had come over the transom for the sale of some tai-chi tapes, which generated a few phone calls here and there. Chanter had been a great help for four months, but now she was seeing the writing on the wall, that if any money came through it would keep the phones plugged in and that’s all. Nobody was even calling back about the bigger documentary. Our only hope was to shoot the short film, and at most that would only be a few days for camera for which she might get paid. So she took a real estate course. Chanter had been one of my many cosmic helpers on the journey. She had refused to give herself totally over to her own journey and make me a cosmic helper to her. Our paths had converged but she was beginning to bow to societal pressures. The wanderer has few friends, only the road. And then I remembered that once I had breakfast with an Englishman and we had both cleaned our plates.

I called the Englishman, Joe Dutton, to tell him that his referral to Channel 4 ended up a dry well. He spent most of his time in England but he was coming over. I set up an appointment with him through Madame Carlotta the secretary. I talked Christine Chanter Leahy into going with me though she didn’t have a lot of confidence that her being there would make any difference. We waited on the couch in his comfortable staging room while he displayed his inventions proudly to potential customers in the film business. He carried 35mm equipment and since we were hoping to shoot in 16mm we weren’t even potential customers.

He finally joined us. I did a few songs and a dance. Chanter answered a few questions and looked good. He said that he would help. He said that he had one 16mm camera package in the back and he would let us use it.

“We can do it with five rolls of film in one day,” I told him.

“You’ve got to do it right,” he said. “I’ll throw in three rolls of film and a good man to assist.”

A member of his staff mentioned the Olympics were coming up, and the camera might be used for something.

“We’ll do it before the Olympics,” I said. They were a week away and the Englishman was returning to England. His staff ran the shop in his absence. I knew that Madame Carlotta was in our corner, but the manager wasn’t.

“You still need sound and a gaffer,” he said. “We’ll throw in a few lights too. See what you can do with that and let me know.” I had never heard him speak more clearly.

There was NO money. I called Clark Gable and Van Johnson. Clark said that they were meeting with their partners at the end of July and the film was on the agenda. I called Brent Runyon and Dale, the Judge Warren Jewett and Stephen Pemberton and the Real George McCoy, Kathy and Charley Register, Turtle and the woman with the young son. Everyone but the woman could do it that week. Richard Atwood, the Greek chorus, was off to England the following week so it had to be before the Olympics. Turtle’s sister Cheryl Hurst and nephew Branson Scott Hurst were ready to take the place of the other woman and child, and we were ready. Chanter and I called around for a crew. I called the Englishman and he said, “Slow down, give yourself a couple of weeks, there’s a hurricane coming. Call me when you have a date.”

I hadn’t noticed Hurricane Bertha headed toward the coast. I knew that by waiting we would lose Richard Atwood and his was one of the more memory-intensive parts. But we still needed money for gas and crew. The extra two weeks took a lot of the pressure off. But there was still the worry that their 16mm camera would go to the Olympics.