Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Tony Kushner

Roy? I don’t—

      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.”

      HENRY: Oh I’m not going to—

      ROY: With an “H,” Henry, and it isn’t “hemophiliac.” Come on . . .

      HENRY: What are you doing, Roy?

      ROY: No, say it. I mean it. Say: “Roy Cohn, you are a homosexual.”

       (With deadly seriousness)

       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.

       (Pause. Henry summons his courage.)

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

      ROY: From a whore in Dallas.

      HENRY: From syphilis to venereal warts. In your rectum. Which you may have gotten from a whore in Dallas, but it wasn’t a female whore.

       (A standoff. Then:)

      ROY: So say it.

      HENRY: Roy Cohn, you are . . .

       (Roy’s too scary. He tries a different approach)

       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 (A beat, then): 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.

      HENRY: No?

      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? Not ideology, or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will pick up the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who in fifteen years of trying cannot pass a pissant antidiscrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry?

      HENRY: No.

      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?

      HENRY: The president.

      ROY: Even better, Henry. His wife.

      HENRY: I’m impressed.

      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 defined entirely by who I am. Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man, Henry, who fucks around with guys.

      HENRY: OK, Roy.

      ROY: And what is my diagnosis, Henry?

      HENRY: You have AIDS, Roy.

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

       (Little pause.)

      HENRY: Well, whatever the fuck you have, Roy, it’s very serious, and I haven’t got a damn 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.