HIV, SARS...and now, SDS?
Nonetheless, quite a number of people found their livelihoods imperiled as employer ignorance led to the firings of waiters and chefs, office workers, schoolteachers, even lawyers and laborers suspected of being homosexual and therefore potential vectors for this terrifying new affliction.
For those who think those days are in the past, the Associated Press reported on July 15, 2003 that the overexposed bastion of political correctness known as Cirque du Soleil fired an HIV-positive gymnast for, presumably, being HIV-positive. Matthew Cusick was straightforward about his status when he was hired, and he was cleared by Cirque's doctors to perform in their Las Vegas spectacle, Mystere. He does not have AIDS and while he does harbor the antibody, his doctors describe his viral load as "undetectable." Still, someone decided to give him the axe.
Initially, Cirque du Soleil had no comment. But in November, when Lambda and other gay activist groups began demonstrating outside their shows, they issued a lukewarm statement attempting to ameliorate the escalating unpleasantness. It didn't work. It will be interesting to see what effect all of this has on their already sagging box office receipts.
This is just one, small-scale instance of epidemic panic. It wasn't long ago that ebola was our scare du jour, and who didn't love the irony of travelers shuffling through airports across the globe afraid to breathe the air around them and unabashedly covering their faces with masks to keep out the SARS? Not months earlier, the bright lights at our new Homeland Security bureau had issued a "heightened terror alert," boosting sales of duct tape and plastic sheeting?and yet the world's airports were filled with masked passengers, any one of whom could have been bin Laden himself.
Inspired by AIDS hysteria and a scary incident in a New York bar, Steven-Elliot Altman put together an anthology in 2000 called The Touch. The stories centered around a worldwide epidemic that causes its victims to deprive anyone they touch of one or more of their senses, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Publisher's Weekly described the anthology as "a provocative book sure to warrant attention" filled with "stinging, mournful, pointed writing of consistently high quality." Profits from the book went to HEAL (Health Education AIDS Liaison) and F.A.C.T. (Foundation for Advancement in Cancer Therapy).
Three years later, Altman's Sensory Deprivation Syndrome (SDS) is gaining fresh attention with the release of his novel, Deprivers. It's already been optioned by Peter Guber's Mandalay Television Pictures to be produced with Columbia TriStar Television. Altman is co-producing the pilot and co-wrote the script with director Andy Wolk, best known for his work on The Sopranos and The Practice.
Altman says the seed of the idea came to him back during the height of AIDS hysteria, when nobody really knew yet whether or not the syndrome could be transmitted by mosquitos or saliva.
"I thought, okay, what would it be like if we took this to the next level? What if we had a crippling disease that was passed on by mere skin-on-skin contact?"
The incident that directly inspired the fictitious syndrome is unsettling:
"I was sitting in a club in downtown NY called Bar-do talking to a lovely young lady? I admit I was a bit drunk. She kissed me and then went to the bathroom. About five minutes later the lights went out. Not the bar lights. Just mine. I was 100 percent blind and I completely lost it. The bartender and the manager called an ambulance and I was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. Check the records. Two doctors examined me and found nada wrong. About two hours later I could suddenly see again. The experience deeply affected me. I knew I'd eventually write about it. Who was she? Was she the cause of my temporary blindness? I'll probably never be sure."
Altman started writing about SDS, but decided that he wanted to hear other voices telling the story to gain some broader perspective on just how people would respond to this horror. He decided to create an anthology and assembled a group of writers who dug the idea. Among those who contributed to The Touch were Dr. Janet Asimov, William F. Nolan, Sean Stewart, Tananarive Due, Kit Reed, Harry Turtledove, Maggie Estep, Katherine Dunn and the inimitable Edward Gorey.
I asked Altman to summarize briefly the nature of the epidemic that drives The Touch and Deprivers.
"The fictional epidemic that inspires the books is SDS?Sensory Deprivation Syndrome, which radically changes the course of all human contact. The mere touch of a 'Depriver' causes a sensory overload that can render the victim blind, deaf or otherwise deprived of a physical sense. The handshake, the kiss and casual sex all go the way of the dinosaur and Fortran programming. The law restricts people infected with SDS from making skin-on-skin contact with 'normal' people."
What of those who remain unaffected?
"If you're a 'normal' in a world gone touch-shy, you're living at a particularly high level of paranoia. The more urban your locale, the more dangerous. Touch that man on the subway by accident during the next jolt and an hour later you're stone deaf. If you're a Depriver, you're facing the fact that you're ostracized, living in constant fear that you'll injure loved ones, terrified that at any moment your neighbors will kick in the door to your home."
Altman has exponentially ramped up the oft-forgotten AIDS paranoia, projecting a near-future where the merest touch can induce a devastating handicap. He depicts the social consequences of such an epidemic, including the law-enforcement measures that would be brought to bear in an attempt to contain it.
Part of Altman's promotional strategy for the Deprivers concept involved the use of a very realistic little CDC pamphlet describing the syndrome. The fine print is the giveaway: The letters "CDC" in this case stand for "Center for Deprivers Control." He says that the Weekly World News and a few others took it seriously.
Considering Altman's experience with sudden-onset blindness, could SDS have a basis in reality?
"Honestly, I don't know? [T]hrough my research I know there are thousands of cases of unexplained loss of sight, hearing, smell, touch memory, motor skills and other types of related deprivations. The characters and stories?are fictitious. However, there are doctors out there who have contacted me suggesting there is some fact behind the fiction, asking me to relate my inspiration for the project."
If writing a novel and getting it published is like having a baby, having it optioned by a major Hollywood studio and fast-tracked into development is like having your 16-year-old daughter announce that she's eloping with a Hell's Angel. I asked Altman if he had any particularly atrocious tales of industry avarice or depravity. His response was carefully measured:
"Coming out to Hollywood after nine years of writing television spots for the New York advertising world is certainly a jolt. I used to write a spot, show the client, get notes and then go into production. Things don't happen so smoothly out here. The Hollywood machine is flawed by fear-based purchasing?the fear that a project you pass on might be sold to your competition and come back to haunt you?and development hell, the fear of actually putting your money where your mouth is and green-lighting a project you've paid to have scripted into physical production. Both problems could be easily rectified if producers would only buy projects they held true passion for and were willing to take risks for, not just the flavor of the month that some other producer mentioned over a cappuccino."
As for Deprivers and SDS, it will be interesting to see this fictional epidemic land on bookshelves during a time of decidedly non-fiction AIDS, SARS, West Nile and anthrax. It's a good, quick read?in the tradition of King and Koontz. Altman isn't putting on airs; this isn't "literature" from Foster Wallace or Franzen. Rather, it's a timely, thought-provoking and, unfortunately, relevant story.
Myself, I'd like to know what became of that girl at the bar, and just what triggered Altman's temporary blindness. Science fiction all too often has a peculiar way of becoming science fact.