The Least Of Kingdoms (by Jess Carey)

THE LEAST OF KINGDOMS

Jess Carey

"To have greatly loved is to sail without ballast- with neither chart nor cargo, not bound for the least of kingdoms. Nothing remains, except this being free."
-Paul Monette

The TIME is tonight.
The SCENE is the bedroom of PAUL, a gay singer in his early thirties. The bedroom is well-furnished: a queen-sized bed with many pillows and a fluffy white duvet, a bedstand with pictures of various shows and friends, also with a telephone and several pill bottles. A pair of flannel pajamas are folded on the bed. PAUL is in the bathroom; we can hear him splashing, maybe humming, as he gets ready for bed.
He now enters, nude except for a pair of boxers, carrying a glass of water. He puts on his P.Js slowly, enjoying the little ritual, the way the cloth feels. He takes some of the pills on the bedstand. When this is finished, he kneels at the side of the bed and folds his hands.

PAUL:
Hey God. It’s Paul again. This is so funny, I hate to pray, but doesn’t it feel like lately I’ve been taking up an awful lot of your time? I guess... I need someone to talk to.
I don’t mean my friends aren’t- because my friends are great!- but sometimes. Sometimes, God, I get so overwhelmed by the fear and the hopelessness I think that the only person I can stand to talk to is someone who has it all in perspective. Someone who really knows what’s up. And I guess that’s you. Oh, I talked to Charlie on the phone. He was just running out to the Caldor’s, because it’s going out of business and he wants to buy some free weights while they’re cheap. "Paul, the housewives are nuts!" he said. "I swear, one of them threatened to claw my eyes out if I so much as looked at the barbecue grills! Like I barbecue. What kind of gay do they take me for?" Jesus, Charlie. He tells me that when he buys those icky porn mags he reads them right at the counter, just to make the salesclerks turn red. It takes me a half an hour to stir up the balls to go into the gay section of the Barnes and Noble. One of these days I’ll get brave, huh?
God? How come you let the Caldor’s go out of business?
I’m kidding.

Hhhmm.... Mario says it’s raining something awful in California, and that I should think about canceling my trip out there if it keeps up. But I watched the weather man on TV and he said it was fine. Mario doesn’t want me out there because he doesn’t want me to see the Kaposi’s spots. Last time I saw him he looked like wine country, by now he must be purple head to toe. And I don’t think I want to see that, if you want to know the truth. But then again, I might as well. Seeing as how that’s going to be me someday, isn’t it, I might as well just... get used to it. Accept the inevitable.
Because no matter what I take, God, no matter which pills the doctor forces down my throat and no matter which drug he shoots into my veins... I don’t feel like they’re working. I don’t mean physically, because physically they’re working. The numbers are going the right ways again. I mean... I mean...
WHY, GOD!
Why did you let this happen? Why are you letting this happen to- me, to my friends? Why don’t you just make it stop? God. Make it stop.
Please.

You took Mark. You took Mark who lived next door, he lived in the apartment next to mine, so close I could hear him through the walls, moving softly, doing whatever it was he had to try to do to stay alive. I heard every single noise that came from that room, I heard the coughing and the crying and the puking and the pills, I heard the swearing from the pentamadine injections his lover David gave him, I heard them talking in low nervous tones. I heard David bring the pills. I heard David bring the ddl, David who had no idea that those pills went straight to his pancreas and killed him, GODDAM KILLED HIM, at- at thirty or twenty-five or however the hell old he was and WHY?! FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS, WHY!!! What kind of satisfaction did you get out of killing him?! Did you like the funeral, huh, God, didn’t you think they made you look very nice? I thought so. You, taking Mark to your "infinite rest", your "glorious Kingdom". Well, FUCK YOUR KINGDOM! What kind of kingdom can Mark have without David? What kind of...

PAUL breaks down. He takes a drink of water and composes himself.

PAUL:
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so angry. But I don’t understand! I’m so afraid of this world. I’m afraid of AIDS. I’m afraid of getting sick. I’m afraid I’ll die. I’m afraid my friends will die. I think I’m more afraid that I won’t die, that everyone will die but me, that I’ll be left alone with this awful burden, this terrible job of remembering everybody. I know so many people, little people, the little guys, the nobodies. When they die, the world won’t notice, the world won’t mourn. It’s going to be up to me to trap these memories up somehow, to pin down the light of their souls so someone will know they were here. I have to do it. They deserve it. I don’t know if I can.
God... Why can’t you just fix them? Why can’t you just make it dry up?
You can heal people. Heal us. All of us. Heal... heal me.

James went to a faith healer last week, so long as we’re on the subject. This woman with purple hair and a man with a big booming voice, like this:
(imitates faith healer)
"Be HEALED, by the POWER OF JESUS, BE HEALED!"
(normal voice)
James said he felt something, like this fire, shuddering through his entire body. Like an electric storm. He said he saw this great- burst of light, like something exploding behind his eyeballs, and that his whole body began to shake helplessly. He couldn’t walk out of there, he needed two of the healer’s henchmen to carry him back to his seat. And he said that when they put him down, he grabbed one of their arms and asked what happened, and the man said
"Let go of me, faggot."
Let go of me, faggot.
He said he left the tent as soon as he got the feeling back to his feet. He can’t walk very well. Neuropathy, you know.

And Al’s good too, they say. I saw the gang from "Chorus Line" at the bar last night and they told me Al’s back in Ohio with his partner, and they’re just buckling down for the winter. They had a big fight, they almost broke up. But nobody really wants to be alone right now. Remember? That’s what Al told me at the last performance, when I asked him if we could be lovers. Those were my words, "Can we be lovers?", boy I was so naive back then! "Nobody really wants to be alone right now, Paul," he said, holding my hand, looking down into my eyes very gently. Big grey eyes. I think he was blind then. "I know. But I’m not the man for you." He kissed me, right there, softly on the forehead, then it was bye bye Al and he was gone. The gang keeps up with him, obviously. I don’t know why we lost touch.
I’m losing touch with everybody, though, God, as you might have noticed if you weren’t doing anything too important. By degrees I find myself dropping out, going inward, wrapping up in myself and waiting for... something. I go out on the street, I see other friends- the HIV negative ones-, I talk to my parents long distance on the phone... and I feel like they just have no idea. I live in this new country. Why can’t they follow me, why can’t they get in? I spend every day petrified and in love, waiting and hoping and looking. It’s killing me, yet I’ve never felt more alive. My life is consumed with love and fear, both and once, both equal. I want to scream. I want to sing. I want to live. I want everyone to live.
So.
So tell me what to do. God, if you’re up there, give me some kind of sign or something, anything, to tell me how I can go on living like this. Because I- I don’t know if I believe you’re up there, I don’t know if I’m not really talking to the feet of the upstairs neighbor. What kind of God would take all the best people in my life and run this virus through them like slaughtering sheep, spilling open the throats of their souls and marking them, slashing through their lives. I can’t take the uncertainty anymore. TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!

Long pause. Silence. PAUL stares at the ceiling.

PAUL:
So.

Another pause. Suddenly PAUL remembers something.

PAUL:
I can’t quite leave it on that note, because that isn’t exactly true. Because on Wednesday night I saw Steve perform at a college. You know Steve, right? His musical is a smash success, he said when it comes to New York I have the lead, hands down and no audition required. He was so beautiful that night, God, banging away on the piano, snapping, singing, laughing at the funny parts even when no one else did. Watching him... watching him, I start thinking that you’re still out there. Up there. In the little things, in the good days. The way I can still rouse myself to give one good version of "I’m Still Here" in the shower, the days I don’t have diarrhea and I don’t have any immodium either, the way that Steve can still sing. And Charlie can still lift weights, and Mario can get up the balls to get a huge tattoo across his shoulder blades and James can grin and bear the pushy Christians. There are little lights. I don’t know why you won’t give us big ones.
God, I don’t know why you won’t give us the cure, but I do know this. You have blessed me with an extraordinary group of friends. My life is an embarrassment of riches. I have a job to do: to watch, to feel, to connect, to remember. I’m going to be the only one left. I can feel it. I’m afraid of it, but I know when the time comes I can raise my voice high, and give the world the best I can of the best people I know. I am the Witness, the Record-Keeper, the Night Watchman, for the bravest, most noble, most brilliant, most loving, most inspiring people on the face of this earth, on the face of this plague.
I can’t imagine a better job.

PAUL bows his head.

PAUL:
God bless Steve, Charlie, Mario, Al, James, Trish, Jimmy, Dickie, Paul H., Steve M., my parents, my sister, my grandma, my aunts and uncles and cousins and all the family on the West Coast I’ve never met. And bless me too. Give me the strength to believe in you despite the things you do. ‘Cause when I’m really worried, there you are. The light that holds us all together.
Thank you.
I mean, uh, amen.

PAUL gets up. He finishes his water, takes a last pill, maybe looks fondly at the ceiling or at the pictures on the bedstand. Finally he crawls into bed.

PAUL:
Whoops, and God?
I really wanna win a Tony.
Thanks.

Lights fade to black.