CALL ME LAZARUS (POZ, December 1997)
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BY PETER KURTH
Call me Lazarus.
I thought I’d put
that in writing just to see how it looks, and because everywhere I go people are
talking about miracles. I can’t open a newspaper or flip on the television
without seeing someone leap from his deathbed and run the marathon. You know
the kind of story I mean:
SOMEWHERE IN
AMERICA [but usually California] – A year ago, David [Kevin/Michael/Stephen/Todd]
was lying exhausted on his futon, his once-muscular frame wasted to nothing,
his features pale, gaunt, and covered with lesions. Sweat poured from his brow
as he toyed apathetically with his two cats, Mistle and Toe, his only companions
in the bare, one-room apartment he's called home ever since he was diagnosed
with full-blown AIDS and had to give up his job as personal assistant to
Jennifer Aniston's veterinarian.
Today, thanks to
protease inhibitors and life-saving new treatments known as "AIDS
cocktails," David is back at the gym, dating the man of his dreams,
planning his retirement and wondering whether he should redecorate his beach
house or join the M.C.C. chorus this summer on a six-week singing tour of Nepal
and Bhutan.
There are thousands
of “Davids” all over the country, men who only last
year were ready to throw in the towel and now are wondering what to do with
their new-found health and energy. Scientists call this phenomenon the Lazarus
Syndrome, after Lazarus of Bethany, the man Jesus raised from the dead with
three simple words at the door of his tomb: "Lazarus, come out!"
Well, I'm out. I’ve
been out for years, but now I’m really out. There’s nothing like rising
from the dead to get people’s attention. And if my own experience is anything
to go by, Lazarus must have sometimes felt he was better off moldering in the
grave. I’ve done some research and I can tell you: Resurrection isn’t what it’s
cracked up to be.
In the first place,
did you know that the story of Lazarus is told in only one of the four gospels
of the New Testament (John: 11-12)? Neither did I until I looked it up.
Apparently, it was the last miracle before the Crucifixion, and it so stunned
the scribes or the pharisees or whatever they were that they decided to kill
Jesus right there on the spot. They decided to kill Lazarus too, unfortunately,
on the grounds that anyone with a story that powerful was a menace to society:
"The chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death,
because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on
Jesus."
So the first thing
Lazarus had to deal with after coming back to life was a death sentence. This
explains why the other gospel writers tried to keep the story under wraps. It
can't have been easy converting people to Christianity when the price of
Eternal Life was immediate execution.
I can relate to
Lazarus's predicament, anyhow, because ever since I started on protease
inhibitors people have been trying to get rid of me, too.
Not to be paranoid,
but I think they liked me better before I started taking the pills. I was
practically dead when I crawled back to
But now it’s a
different story. These pills and I are like Popeye and the spinach. I’ve never been
so stalwart in my life. I'm Charles A. Lindbergh, Helen Keller, and La
Pasionaria all rolled into one. I’m Scarlett O’Hara after intermission.
You would be too if you had my creditors to contend with. And my relatives. And
my editors. Lazarus had nothing but the Romans and the Sanhedrin to worry
about, but I’ve got the IRS, the Vermont Department of Social Welfare, and an
overdue book contract worth somewhere "in the six figures," as they
say. Publishers want their money back if you don't do the work. The only excuse
is death and it has to be your own.
Unfortunately, the
Bible doesn't tell us what happened to Lazarus after the high priests put a
price on his head. There are some Church legends that sprang up later, of
course, ridiculous things having to do with Lazarus and Mary Magdalene, who
took the first boat out of
But I don’t believe
any of these stories. I expect what really happened is that someone told
Lazarus he was out of shape after four days in the tomb, and that if he wanted
to make the scene again he’d have to go back to the gym. This probably happened
the minute he took off his shroud and wiped the mildew from behind his ears.
Domine, Domine. Amen.
"No people
ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the
platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of]
the Incorporated National Will. ... When our dictator turns up you can depend
on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything
traditionally American. And nobody will ever say `Heil' to him, nor will they
call him `Führer' or `Duce.' But they will greet him with one great big,
universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of `O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna,
Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'" -- Dorothy Thompson, 1935