Thucydides (excerpt) by Daniel Irving Rattner

Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner XI. MONICA, ERIC, and RON appear. When they speak, they are addressing the audience, not each other. 1 ERIC Um, I think it was ‘80- I think it was ‘89. So, I would have been… Okay. This should be easy math. That's 30 years ago? Okay, so I would be- I would have been, um, 36? So I'm still… young? Kinda. [laughs] Everybody else seemed to be in their 20s.

RON I joined ACT UP in ’87, so I was 28.

ERIC So, ACT UP for me- I think- you know, it was probably a difficult thing because I'm basically shy. [laughs] I really am. I'm laughing because I know- I often get a response like, ‘You? Shy?’ RON ACT UP took the place of all the things I thought that theater was going to give me.

ERIC To walk into a crowded room of, um, excited, determined, hot [laughs] young people.

RON The CD trainings, the being there every, you know, X amount of days each week with the same people.

ERIC And, um, you are a minority because there were fewer blacks.

RON Um, the pain, the emotion, the vulnerability, the courage, um, the joy.

ERIC Um, you are a minority because [laughing] you are in your 30s.

RON ACT UP was in a lot of ways a family.

ERIC By this time, you know, a few people who I knew personally had died, and it was only increasing.

RON It was also high school, so there were cliques, and whatever.

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All the text in this play comes verbatim from interviews conducted by the playwright.

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner ERIC You know, I would go to meetings pretty much you know every single Monday night.

RON And there were a hundred people in the room every week.

MONICA Part of being a member of ACT UP was showing up.

RON If you looked at a contact sheet, it was crazy.

ERIC I wanted to do something, and I was frustrated I didn't know what I could do.

RON You know, meetings going on and demonstrations on top of that…

MONICA There is a kind of glorification I think of the big demonstrations where lots of us got arrested.

But there were a lot of small things we did that were as effective.

RON And zaps!

MONICA So, the Fax Zap is a- a- a well-known one where we all faxed The New York Times rolls of black paper to jam up and use up the ink in their fax machines because they were refusing to report on AIDS in the ways that we thought was fair and- and- and correct.

RON But the, um, but the idea of ACT UP- I mean, there was an article in the Native and, you know, about them going down to Washington for this Ju- demonstration in June and, you know, Bradley Ball got on the bus and is like, you know, (cheerleader voice) ‘Hi! Bus number one is better than-!’ You know, just did this whole sort of camp thing. And I'm like, ‘I... I could do that,’ you know?

MONICA I did a lot of, uh, workshops and talks.

RON So, um, the police would come and they would wear these he- either heavy winter gloves, or these, you know, kitchen, you know, yellow kitchen gloves….

MONICA And the workshops were about, um, often safe-sex workshops.

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner RON Because the idea was, you know, we were AIDS protesters, so we all must have AIDS. MONICA I was also involved in the women's group, and in that group, we put together the first book on women and AIDS. RON It also was sort of a hazmat thing. ‘We're not people, we’re biohazards.’

MONICA And we felt very invested in trying to represent everyone who was afflicted.

RON And I think was Frank Jump – it was before my time, but I'm pretty sure it was Frank – came up with, you know, this chant to sort of diffuse things.

MONICA So, there's a chapter on women in prison, which was mostly written by, or at least recorded transcripts of, women in prison.

RON They have these yellow gloves and these, you know, black police boots, so it was like, ‘Your gloves don't match your shoes, you'll see it on the news.’ [he snaps] MONICA And also, I feel very strongly about saying that women were not helping out the men.

RON I mean, that's the thing about camp and that sort of humor is it's a shield?

MONICA Everyone- I mean, at least in the beginning, no one knew how HIV was transmitted.

RON Um, we used it a lot.

MONICA We were all frightened.

RON It felt good. [laughs] MONICA We were all sexual beings, and we all did, um, uh, inebriants of one sort of another.

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner RON It was very gay assertive. It was funny. And it gave you strength.

MONICA And the other thing is that women have always been vulnerable for sex that is- that has consequences that we might not have control over.

RON It sort of gave you an extra… zots? I don’t know if that's the technical word?

MONICA I mean one of the reasons that I think that, um, ACT UP was so effective in a way that a lot of other struggles for civil rights and human rights and health rights are not is because it had this, um, unprecedented amalgam of, um, desperate middle-class privileged men who had almost everything going for them, except for this very pesky, and seriously pesky, problem of their homosexuality.

ERIC I think… maybe in many ways like any kind of, you know, organization that is thrust into being because of a crisis, um…

MONICA And they had a lot of power a lot of resources because of that, uh, position. And that was, um, in a collision with- or I should say a kind of- well, amalgam with these women.

ERIC To some degree, is dependent upon, um, you know, a willingness to, kind of, you know, meet people- meet people outside of your- your- your spectrum, your- your social spectrum or your comfort zone.

MONICA These women like Marion Banzhaf and, um, Sarah Schulman and Risa Denenberg and, um, Maxine Wolf, who had years of experience doing reproductive rights, doing, um, prison rights work, just being in the trenches of feminism and doing this work, and they saw, um, AIDS activism as a place where those issues about bodily integrity and rights over agency of what we do with our bodies were being played out.

RON Progress a few years, you know, there's the FDA, there's the tombstones, you know, the people have the die-ins. By the time we got to the day of desperation in 1991, we were actually carrying coffins. By ’92, it was the ashes action, and we actually were throwing ashes of people who died over the White House fence. Um, following closely on that was, um, this idea of political funerals.

They- they kind of sent out this word like, ‘If you're interested in having your funeral become a political funeral, you know, talk to us. And, um, the first person – again, this is ‘92 – was Mark

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner Fischer. It wasn't anticipated he was going to be the person. Um, and what it was is, um, there was a funeral at Judson Memorial where a lot of the memorials were. And then we took his body – it was like day before the election – and we marched his body in the rain up Sixth Avenue to Bush Headquarters where – open coffin, covered with umbrellas – where we had a- we laid out the, uh, 32-point plan to end AIDS that we’d brought to Kennebunkport the year before? Uh, covered the coffin with it. And then there were eulogies said. Rafsky did this incredible eulogy, quoting Pericles for fuck sake. And, um, and that was the first of the political funerals.

ERIC And then as you're going to enough, you know, memorials and- for friends and…

RON Um, the moment when- the week – I call it death week – when Vito- Vito died and Ray Navarro died and, um, uh, then Kevin Smith.

ERIC And- and you hear what people are saying, or you're speaking yourself, you're getting these back stories that you might not have known if- if the person hadn’t died…

RON And then, you know, ‘Oh, did you hear? Oliver is dying.’

ERIC Or if you, like, weren’t putting that together- affirming their life by- in the process of eulogizing them.

RON It was just like- and you’re just like: The- they’re directly overhead.

ERIC Um… I- I mostly remember I guess from, uh, a friend from- a friend named Todd.

RON The bombs are- the planes- you know, the bombs are dropping directly overhead.

ERIC We were- we were ACT UP friends. You know, there was a memorial at, uh, I think at a friend’s house or something, and I did speak. Um, and maybe it was more touching because we were- we were kind of simpatico friends. There was no romantic interest, but it was just, um, um, you know, there was just, you know… certain people speak to you, you know? Um, but, yeah, I, um, I remember- I don't remember what I said exactly, but I do remember what I led with, something that I felt at the time. And it was a- it was a- it was a quote, which I haven't used in a long time, so, I- Cicero, um, and… “On Friendship.” One of his famous essays- and that friends are often more potent than family because it’s the sort of basis of friendship that there’s- there’s this goodwill. It’s- Whereas with family, it’s more accidental.

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner MONICA One of the things that was true of the queer community, let's say, um, certainly the AIDS community and certainly before that, but it certainly- it came to the fore during the AIDS crisis…

ERIC You know, you meet a lot of people and those people that, you know, you- you kind of adopt each other.

MONICA It’s this idea of what I call sort of queer affiliation or queer kinship.

ERIC And it may not even be conscious, but you develop this sort of sort of bond.

MONICA It’s that the person who was responsible for you was not necessarily the person you are in a couple with.

ERIC And I kind of felt that w- w- w- with Todd. We were becoming closer and, you know, as friends.

MONICA And you may not be in a couple, but you still had devoted friends, and- I mean friends is too poor a word. But there were rosters of people, um, who would sign up to come see a friend in the hospital.

RON You would go to this hospital today, then you go to this other one.

MONICA There’d be one person that would keep that roster, to make sure that you are never alone in the hospital, to make sure you had food, to make sure that your pet was fed while you were in the hospital say.

RON You know, ‘Oh, I was in- I was- I was at St. Lu- St. Roosevelt., you know, St. Luke’s Roosevelt and it’s like, “Oh, well, if- if, you know, Tim was here, David was across the way.”’

MONICA Or- and not even hospitals, but just how we cared for each other was not about the couple. And that was partly you might say because that wasn't available, that wasn't sanct- the couple wasn’t sanctioned in the same way.

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner ERIC It was- it was understood that we have to sort of, you know, in- reinvent the notion of family, you know?

MONICA I think this was a glorious time in that respect, you know, that queer affiliation, queer kinship seems to me so much more powerful, and- it’s a web. It's sort of- it's stronger because it's so replete, so extensive. I understand the fight for marriage equality, but I think it was a misguided fight, I think that, uh, we should have fought for rights for anyone you chose to visit you in the hospital. Anyone you chose to be the beneficiary of your will. Anyone you chose to be able to inherit your apartment or come to- to your apartment. The fact that we have, um, um, um, completed the person that we love and cherish with the person who has all these other rights and responsibilities seems to be very narrow-sighted. Um, when we were at a brink of a moment where we could have gone the other way and said, ‘The AIDS crisis has taught us that this is not the formation of tenders- tenderness and love that we want to fight for.’

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner XII. STEPHEN I'm very proud telling people that- you know, I went home to Louisiana once, and my cousin said- my cousin who I still tousle with online, said, ‘Yeah, I bet you been at the Trump protests.’

I said- I said, ‘No. No, I did my Trump protesting in 1988.’ He’s like, ‘What?’ Trump was, um, evicting people who were HIV positive. He was the only major landlord that didn't like offer a single- Didn't want any- any… Specifically like, you know, complained and said that no, that he didn’t want to do that and that… his unwa- why should his other tenants have to live with people with HIV? So, we did a, um… I mean, the first action at, um, at- at Trump Tower was a Halloween action. But the one that- that sticks out in my mind was we, um… The following year on Thanksgiving, we went back on Black Friday to Trump Tower. And our affinity group made these paper plates that said, ‘Trump's giving empty plates for homeless people.’ And we went up to the very top floor of the atrium, and we just threw these hundreds of paper plates. Rained down on shoppers. And another group pitched a tent to have a- like a- like a home encampment in the- by the escalator that he rode down, right in front of the bottom of that escalator [he] descended. It was one of those actions that was planned that broke out several places at once in ways and forms, so it was just like utter chaos suddenly in all directions. [But] Trump never responded to anything. He was immune- We knew in 1988, he was immune to shame.

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner XIII. ALEXIS History is not repeating, but there is a way that’s it’s now rhyming. And there is a way in which some of us are just lifetime activists. And, you know, what we’re looking for is a moment where there is crisis. That’s what happened in 2016. I remember: Trump won. And I was, like, in bed: ‘This is going to be really fucked up.’ Like there was zero doubt in my mind that we had just elected a fascist. And then the next thing that went off in my brain was like, ‘We have to start teaching people civil disobedience again.’ So, um, we started gathering- there were these town hall meetings. It was exactly the same way that ACT UP was formed: Town hall meetings at the LGBT Center, but we're now 25, 30 years along and the LGBT Center is actually not a welcoming space. Because they're about making money. Their rooms are expensive.

I mean, you know, like sometimes, like I've left this community going on my way to protest in Times Square or Union Square or Trump Tower. Like, you know, I pass- you know, I'm wearing a t-shirt. I've got a sign. And I’m like seeing people doing their lives. And I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember. This was exactly the same thing as the AIDS crisis.’ That like, there are people who are completely tuned out, and they don’t get that we are at war in our own city. And I likethere’s this gulf between us. Because my life becomes about training people, teaching people, and getting the word out. There's so much harm happening right now. Like, what do you want to work on? You want to work on feeding immigrants? Or you want to work on interrupting the ICE process? Do you want to work on accompaniment? Do you want to work on, you know, interrupting police harassment of black and brown people in the city? Or like- it's all- it's all right there. It's all connected. And you're just going along- along with your life?

It’s because, first of all, you can't live on alert. And so, you don't. You're just not that person.

You're not wired that way. I have a lot of really lovely people in my life, who are just not wired to be activists. And I try to shut my fucking mouth around them. Because what am I going to say? You know, like, ‘I don't want to see your fucking dessert on Facebook’? ‘You don't deserve to have your fucking dessert’? ‘The only people who get to post their desserts on Facebook are the people who are out on the street’? Like, that's what I feel, you know? But that’s not going to win friends or get me invited back to Passover. So, most of the time, I am not talking to those people, and I am only hanging out with political people, because political people need political people to make ourselves feel sane. And this has caused a lot of ruptures in my own family. I’m like, ‘Yep, whatever. You weren't there for the AIDS crisis. Fuck you again.’

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Thucydides by Daniel Irving Rattner XIV. TONI In West Virginia, I might- it might as well be 1996. I’ve got, you know, I mean most people don't know, I mean literally that’s what my call was before your call, is that most people don’t know last year we had a outbreak of 84 new cases of HIV in a three-county range. Three counties! 84 cases! 2020! That’s ridiculous. And I believe that there are probably more cases except we're not screening at a high enough volume.

The thing is, we did a good job and a bad job, right? So, we did a good job of saying, ‘Hey, if you have a biomedical- if you take- if you have a- if you take these pills, you can be undetectable, right? For the treatment, right? And you'll be fine. And if you take this pill, you can prevent yourself from getting HIV. So, we basically have now also sold a message of, ‘We can end the AIDS epidemic.’ But for a lot of people, the message they've gotten is that we ended the AIDS epidemic. The problem is, is that we haven't really ended it in certain communities: black, brown, poor communities. And we- we’ve got to do something about it. So, I think it’s wherewho we're educating and how we're educating.

For example: rural, poor, white America. We're not talking to them about HIV because we never saw them at risk. We didn't- we didn't put them- we didn't put them on- we didn't put them in our playbook. And now we're at the ‘Oh shit’ level. Right? So now the question is: How do you go back 30 years and say, ‘We need to talk to you about something’? If you- if you, you know, and this is what I’ve been saying, is that: opioids? Hepatitis? The caboose of that train is HIV. And let's- let’s- let’s add a couple more cars to the train: Opioids. Unemployment. Low-educational attainment. Poor housing. Poor- bad water. Hepatitis. HIV is the caboose of that train. Right?

Because it's all of the things that- it’s all of the things that- that every study tells us leads to HIV. What are the factors that are- lead to HIV elimination? Well, number one, you get a person screened. That's the first way. Well, if you don’t have a statewide screen program… Okay? Well.

If you don't have a statewide Hep C screening program: Well. If you have a massive substance use disorder problem: Well. If you have low educational attainment: Well. If you have high unemployment: Well. If you have poor housing and living conditions: Well. If you have low- bad schools: Well. If you have poor water: Well. If you have a poor- poor health outcome: Well. I mean, if you keep add- if you- if you keep- so when- when did you think that HIV wasn't going to come?

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