The Men We Became

by Robert T. Littell

  It wasn’t until years later that I caught a glimpse of the wild side of the Kennedys, and there was no drunkenness or party-crashing involved. It was the summer of 1988 and John had invited Frannie and me to stay at the family compound in Hyannis Port, on Cape Cod. The family was getting ready to play one of their famously competitive touch football games. The whole gang was there, with most of the players piling out of Robert F. Kennedy Sr.’s household. His sons Joe, Michael, Bobby, and Max and Senator Ted Kennedy’s son Patrick were on the lawn, along with anyone else with a strong set of front teeth. It was a beautiful Sunday morning and we were in high spirits. The instant that play started, though, things took a turn for the ferocious. During the first five minutes of the game there were three arguments, two shoving matches, and no scoring. The cousins’ handsome faces, smiling just moments before, contorted into grimaces. We all played fiercely, victory momentarily more important than life itself. I’d never played this kind of game. I’m not even sure it was a game. It was more like a battlefield, an arena in which these brothers and cousins played out the complex rivalries and emotions that all families have, especially theirs. Two-hand touches became tackles. Tackles became pile-ons. And John seemed to be on the receiving end of most of the excess elbows and biting commentary. By the end, I was mentally exhausted. Instead of the usual post-victory elation, I felt as though I’d just lost a two-hour catfight. As John and I walked back into his mother’s house, I said to him, “What a pack of assholes.”

  John responded laughingly, “That was a mellow game.”

  I believed him. These guys were true warriors. John took the most heat because of the position he held in the family. On one hand, he was the only son of the most accomplished member of an accomplished clan. He was also, without question, the media’s favorite Kennedy: the “sexiest” one, the one who never got in trouble. On the other hand, John was something of an outsider within the Kennedy family. Though close to several of his cousins, especially Timmy Shriver, Bobby Kennedy, and Willie Smith, he had a slightly strained relationship with the tight-knit crew as a whole. He’d been raised outside of their Massachusetts world, kept apart by his protective and New York–based mother. She saw to it that her children were as independent as she was. It wasn’t long after our game that Mrs. Onassis built her own home on Martha’s Vineyard—close to the family, but separate. The Hyannis Port gang teased John not for lack of love but, in my opinion, out of envy. This didn’t bother him a bit. He had the best of many worlds and he knew it.

  *

  As it turned out, we didn’t need to take any road trips freshman year. Our visions of wild times and raucous behavior were easily satisfied by walking across campus to Wriston Quad, which on a Saturday night felt like Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras. Not long after our Ozzie-and-Harriet–like Yale excursion, John and I found ourselves at a recruiting party at Phi Psi, located right on Wriston Quad and reputed to throw the best-looking parties in the school. We were there at the invitation of Rich Wiese, a born-and-bred New Yorker and decathlete whose all-American face had recently been discovered by the Ford modeling agency. Rich was the president of Phi Psi and had recently, famously, hosted Brooke Shields on her college visit. We figured him for a girl magnet.

  Although we weren’t members yet, Phi Psi quickly became our gathering spot. One evening a group of us were hanging out in the Phi Psi TV room when our friend Billy Way blew in the door. He was followed by six attractive and evidently inebriated young women from Providence College. Billy, who’d attended Andover with John, was a tennis star from Bermuda with yellow eyes and a sly, sweet manner. Women found him irresistible. He had made love to more girls by his eighteenth birthday than most guys fantasize about in their whole lifetime. Billy began to introduce his new following to the rest of us, escorting the cutest girl over to John. He introduced them, first names only. They chatted for a minute or so before Billy circled back around. Sensing a lack of spark, he told the girl that she was talking to the late President’s son. She lit up like a Christmas tree, as if this news changed everything. Looking John right in the eye, she said, “Prove it.” Without changing his straight-faced expression, John stuck his hand in his back pocket and from his wallet produced his New York State driver’s license. The girl, all business at that point, reviewed the license for a moment and then, with a Cheshire kitten’s grin, stuffed her right hand down the front of John’s pants and led him out of the room.

  When you’re eighteen years old, you can get into a lot of trouble when people respond to you like that. And it happened often enough. John’s combination of fame, good looks, and charm had a weird effect on some people. An astounding number of women wanted to sleep with him. Some men kept their distance, too proud to risk looking starstruck. Others were instantly ingratiating. To his credit, John handled the attention well. He had an enthusiastic libido but almost always resisted the sexual opportunities that came his way, preferring real relationships. And with people who completely lost their balance around him, he knew how to be polite but distant.

  I had a harder time with John’s star power. Basically, it scared me, because I was looking for stability or nothing in my future relationships. These instant friendships that John was offered seemed too fleeting, too subject to change. And I wanted nothing to do with change. It’s no coincidence that I met my future wife, Frannie, and my best friend, John, in my first week at Brown—one week out of the hotbed of a household I’d grown up in. But in the beginning, John’s celebrity made me nervous, as though I couldn’t trust things on their surface. I liked the guy, but I was wary of his public persona. I certainly didn’t want to be a fawning admirer.

  Instinctively, I held myself and John to a higher standard. At least that’s how I saw it. In truth, I compensated for the possible imbalance in our friendship by being a prick. Mostly it was minor stuff, like making sure that I rode shotgun on any car trip (and he had to ride in the back) or that I got the biggest slice of pizza. I always took the A section of The New York Times first. I would never cancel a plan, even a dumb one, if John invited me to do something. Little things, but it was not the way most people treated John. It was months before I eased up. John understood what I was doing because he subtly cheered me on, coming closer each time I pushed his public self away. He had no use for fawning admirers, and I challenged him. Slowly, the two of us made a game out of defining and adhering to the rules of friendship. We demanded fair and equal treatment from each other. When his head got big, I’d tell him, usually in an acerbic and pointed fashion. When I was a jerk, he’d be the first to break the news. It took a while, but we ultimately built a solid bond far removed from the corrosive effects of celebrity.

  Over the winter break that first year, my family and I visited New York City to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. It was Christmas Eve and at my request, we began at Trader Vic’s, a legendary watering hole that used to be located in the basement of the Plaza. We started by sucking down a couple of Samoan fog cutters (the drinking age was still eighteen). Our discussion got louder and more animated as we kept drinking, things reaching a fevered pitch when Mom started in on the gardenia-topped tiki puka puka I’d ordered for her. Thoroughly inebriated by now, we made our way to the Ravelled Sleeve for a seven-thirty dinner reservation. No sooner were we seated than my mother abruptly stopped talking. Her face turned an odd shade of gray and she excused herself to the ladies’ room. Linda, my sixteen-year-old sister, went down to check on her about ten minutes later. She returned to report, “Mom is lying on the bathroom floor and won’t get up. She claims she’s dying.”

  When Linda’s snickering subsided, she and I went down to the ladies’ room to visit our maker. It wasn’t every day that Mom wound up drunk in a restaurant bathroom, and we wanted to enjoy the spectacle firsthand. I leaned over her prostrate body and kindly informed her that she was simply drunk. She, however, continued to insist that she was dying and requested to be taken to the hospital. We hauled her off the tiles and up the stairs with consid
erable difficulty. It wasn’t so funny anymore. We drove to St. Luke’s Hospital on Seventy-second Street, where Mom was admitted for alcohol poisoning. The doctor told us to come back in a couple of hours in the hope that she could recite the alphabet. With any luck, we could be home before Santa’s rounds.

  I have a phobia of hospitals (dangerous places, you can get seriously hurt in there) and wanted to escape as fast as possible. So I called John. It was Christmas Eve and all, but, well, I was feeling a bit blue. John got on the phone and, after ribbing me for my sorry family outing, yelled to his mom to ask if Linda and I could come over. I protested—weakly, I admit—and a few minutes later we were in a cab on our way to 1040 Fifth Avenue. A doorman wearing a green jacket, striped vest, and bow tie let us in. As we passed through the glass-and-wrought-iron doors, the hustle and din of the city magically disappeared, replaced by another world, one of soothing civility. The porter led us through the typically decked-out Upper East Side lobby—checkered brown marble floors, gilt-framed sketches of tall ships, and mahogany tables to rest one’s Bergdorf bags on—to an elevator on the left side of the building. Upon reaching the twelfth floor, the elevator opened onto a small foyer appointed with an antique table and mirror. I loved that mirror, a generous touch that let you smooth your clothes and check your hair before entering the elegant household that Mrs. Onassis ran. Everything in the house was beautiful, so you might as well look your best.

  Rough-hewn suburban jungle boy that I was, I rang the doorbell with excitement. It was Christmas Eve and I was on altogether new turf, but I didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable. Chalk it up to ego or ignorance or pure competitive spirit, but all I wanted to do was see my friend and check out his obviously cool apartment.

  My sister and I heard someone inside bound across the apartment. John swung open the door, said, “C’mon,” and headed toward his room, impatient to show off his stuff. Disarmed by John’s lack of pretension, Linda and I followed him through the apartment. As far as I could tell, the household looked ready to turn in for the night, though it was only about nine. It was quiet, calm, the lights on the Christmas tree brighter than anything else in the house. As he led us on, John paused for half a second in front of a prominently placed, professionally lit two-foot-tall Egyptian statuette. In his only reference to the apartment’s extraordinary appointments, he turned his head slightly and said, “Original paint.”

  I saw that ancient statue again in the Metropolitan Museum about three years after John’s mother passed away and her apartment had been sold (to a man who told John that he was “going to fix the place up and give it some class”). The little Egyptian fellow sat at the entrance to the Temple of Dendur, with a plaque describing it as 4,500 years old. As I passed, I nodded my head and casually informed an onlooker, “Original paint.”

  The apartment was grand but unmistakably a home, a place where a family lived. For me, the decor had an emotional impact more than a visual one—it felt strong and timeless. Ancient Roman busts stood beside beautifully crafted ceremonial weapons. Paintings, old-looking and probably famous but unrecognized by me, covered the walls. The library was filled with books, both classic and contemporary, many of them obviously read and reread. Everything was beautiful in a quiet, serious way. Even a brash, preppy punk out of New Jersey couldn’t help but be moved by the sheer quality of it all.

  Walking back toward John’s room, my sister and I paused in front of two of the most amazing collages I’ve ever seen. Mrs. Onassis had filled several four-by-six-foot frames with family pictures from over the years. I distinctly remember a picture of young Knucksy, as I’d begun to call John, sitting on the outsize water-level afterdeck of a converted luxury freighter. There was a Greek island in the background and he was preparing to water-ski. A luxury freighter that you could ski off! The collages were impressive and eerie at the same time. Even with my limited knowledge of Kennedy family history, I thought these pictures were remarkable. They depicted a world that was so much larger than life, and yet the casual snapshot images were just like the pictures my mother took, a record of family moments. Mrs. Onassis’s first job had been as a photographer for a Washington paper, and she was clearly fascinated by printed images. She continued to add pictures to her beautiful collages right up until her death, creating a joyful pastiche on the walls of each of her homes. The pictures were all of poignant moments and happy days and, interestingly, all were taken after 1963.

  John’s room was just past the family picture wall on the left, off the hallway. At first glance it looked like a normal college guy’s room, except for the closet. At home I had a closet with some clothes and maybe a football in it. John had a storeroom of industrial-grade adventure equipment. It was like James Bond’s closet as appointed by Q, with scuba tanks and boardsailing keels and underwater jet packs and Arctic tents. Sure enough, there was a football in there, except that it was signed by Joe Namath and all the Jets and was bolted to a wooden stand. The only reference to John’s dad was a large frame containing a small portrait and signature of each U.S. President up to and including his father. The frame had one of John Kennedy’s actual pens embedded in it. I remember noticing that he had no posters of sports figures or rock stars pinned, stapled, or taped to his walls and that his model collection consisted of a highly detailed, fully rigged wooden ship, the USS Constitution, that was too big to fit in a bottle and so took up the entire top of his bureau. Despite the fact that this had been his room for close to fifteen years, it didn’t seem to have his signature on it. I figured his mother ran a tight ship. Also, he’d spent his high-school years, the time when most teenagers mutiny, out of the house at Andover.

  We were hanging out in John’s room, my sister and I listening to his continuing overview of his adventure toys, when Mrs. Onassis called for us to come eat. We went out to the dining room, where a spread of gingerbread cookies, ice cream, and milk was laid out on the table. I remember thinking, “Hooray for Christmas!” as Mrs. Onassis got us back in the holiday mood, regaling us with tales of Christmases past. I barely recall snippets of a story of her father and his good humor over a fallen Christmas tree, but I know that she was more animated than I ever saw her again. Though she was about fifty years old at the time, her legendary beauty was not lost on me. She had a broad, symmetrical face with strong features, especially her dark, seductively shaped eyes. It was a refined face, elegant but not delicate or fragile-looking. Slim and with an athletic build, she moved with incredible grace. Every movement was smooth, like a ballerina. Really, though, and I’m not the first to say this, it was her voice that was most extraordinary. She talked in a kind of whisper, low and breathy and compelling, all the while focusing intently on the person she was speaking to.

  That was the only time I ever heard Mrs. Onassis speak of herself or her past. She and John had turned our disastrous night into a special Christmas Eve. The best thing was, despite the lofty trappings of art and history, it really didn’t feel as though we were doing anything other than visiting our neighbors in Princeton. Except for the 4,500-year-old statue.

  Two

  AT BROWN

  BACK AT SCHOOL, second semester, it was time to choose a place to live for the following year. One rainy Providence Sunday (a trend—it rains a lot up there), John came over to my room to visit. We were talking about our recruiting experiences at the various fraternities, just hanging out, when John interrupted me, asking, very fast, “Whatshouldwedoaboutroomingnextyear?”

  I knew what I wanted to do. Helping him through his awkward moment, I responded, “I’d been thinking we’d live together at Phi Psi, with the rest of the guys.”

  He said, “Sounds good to me.”

  Although Phi Psi had once been a real fraternity, it had dropped its national affiliation some years back and now operated more like a high-spirited social club. Set in a redbrick building on Wriston, the club consisted of dormlike rooms, each housing two students, a TV room on the main floor, and a bar in the basement. The furniture was f
rom the 1960s, sturdy and ugly like Naugahyde ought to be. Neither John nor I had much interest in Greek society living, but sophomores were encouraged to live on campus, and joining a fraternity was the only way to keep a large group of friends together. We’d assembled a sizable crew by then. There was John Hare, aka the California Kid, the number one singles player on the Brown tennis team and actually from Illinois; the yellow-eyed Billy Way; Rick Moseley, Brown’s starting soccer goalie and a Sean Connery look-alike out of New Hampshire; Tom Haslett, a lacrosse player from the “still British” part of Massachusetts; Mark Rafael, a talented actor; and Gary Weiss, brainy, intense, and another soccer goalie. We’d met the upperclassmen who lived there, and they seemed a reasonable group. So a bunch of us pledged Phi Psi.

  I can’t remember the name of Brown’s admissions director at the time, but he deserves credit for populating the school with an unlikely assortment of students. Many of us were not the typical top-achieving students out of our high schools. Instead, Brown took genuine risks—accepting kids with varied interests, mandating few required courses, and making grades optional—that let individualistic students find their own way. If there was a lot of academic pressure, I missed it. (Of course, I missed quite a few classes as well, so I may not be the best judge.) We weren’t particularly political, preferring a good time to a good cause. And 1979 was an easy time to be in college—AIDS was not even named yet, the drinking age was eighteen, and crack, heroin, and Ecstasy were unheard-of on campus. Cocktails and pot smoking satisfied most desires for rebellious experimentation.

  John had created a fairly normal life on campus in very little time. Kids who didn’t know him well might tell their friends they had John Kennedy in their history class, but most of his days were no different from anyone else’s. Then he’d leave for the weekend and someone would see him on television that night, campaigning for his uncle Teddy or delivering an address at the Kennedy Center in Washington. He rarely mentioned his public appearances to his friends. It was as though he deliberately split himself in two.