Angels in America: Henry and Roy Scene

Roy: This disease...

Syndrome

Roy: From a wh*o*re in Dallas.

From syphilis to venereal warts. In your rectum. Which you may have gotten from a wh*o*re in Dallas, but it wasn't a female wh*o*re.

Roy: Homosexuals and drug addicts. So why are you implying that I... what are you implying, Henry?

I don't...

Roy: Even better, Henry. His wife.

I'm impressed.

*Pause*

Like Kaposi's sarcomas. These lesions. Or your throat problem. Or the glands. We think it may also be able to slip past the blood brain barrier into the brain, which is of course very bad news. And it's fatal in we don't know what percent of people with suppressed immune responses.

Roy: Whatever. It afflicts mostly homosexuals and drug addicts.

Mostly. Hemophiliacs are also a risk.

Roy: No. Like all labels they tell you one thing and one thing only: where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain, in the pecking order? (...) Does this sound like me, Henry?

No

Roy: AIDS. Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels, that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don't tell you that.

No?

*Scene Starts*

Nobody knows what causes it. And nobody knows how to cure it. The best theory is that we blame a retrovirus, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Its presence is made known to us by the useless antibodies which appear in reaction to its entrance into the bloodstream through a cut, or an orifice. The antibodies are powerless to protect the body against it. Why, we don't know. The body even attacks itself. At any rate it's left open to a whole horror house of infections from microbes which it usually defends against.

Roy: I don't want you to be impressed. I want you to understand. This is not sophistry. And this is not hypocrisy. This is reality. I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand. Because what I am is not defined entirely by who I am. Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man, Henry, who f*u*cks around with guys.

OK, Roy.

Roy: "You are a..." Go on. Not "Roy Cohn you are a drug fiend." "Roy Marcus Cohn you are a..." Go on, Henry, it starts with an "H."

Oh I'm not going to...

Roy: I'm not a drug addict.

Oh come on Roy.

Roy: So say it.

Roy Cohn, you are... You have had sex with men, many, many times, Roy, and one of them, or any number of them, has made you very sick. You have AIDS.

Roy: No say it. I mean it. Say: "Roy Cohn, you are a homosexual." And I will proceed, systematically, to destroy your reputation and your practice and your career in New York State, Henry. Which you know I can do.

Roy, you have been seeing me since 1958. Apart from the facelifts I have treated you for everything from syphilis...

Roy: Say, "Roy Cohn you are a..."

Roy.

Roy: Say it.

Say what?

Roy: No. I have clout. A lot. I can pick up this phone, punch fifteen numbers, and you know who will be on the other end in under five minutes, Henry?

The President.

Roy: What, what, come on Roy what? Do you think I'm a junkie, Henry, do you see tracks?

This is absurd.

Roy: This is very interesting, Mr. Wizard, but why the f*ck are you telling me this?

Well, I have just removed one of three lesions which biopsy results will probably tell us is a Kaposi's sarcoma lesion. And you have a pronounced swelling of glands in your neck, groin, and armpits- lymphadenopathy is another sign. And you have oral candidiasis and maybe a little more fungus under the fingernails of two digits on your right hand. So that's why...

Roy: No, Henry, no. AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer.

Well, whatever the f*u*ck you have, Roy, it's very serious, and I haven't got a thing for you. The NIH in Bethesda has a new drug called AZT with a two-year waiting list that not even I can get you onto. So get on the phone, Roy, and dial the fifteen numbers, and tell the First Lady you need in on an experimental treatment for liver cancer, because you can call it any damn thing you want, Roy, but what it boils down to is very bad news.

Roy: With an "H," Henry, and it isn't "Hemophiliac." Come on...

What are you doing, Roy?

Roy: And what is my diagnosis, Henry?

You have AIDS, Roy.