by Caryl Rivers
Yes, it is. It’s the worst one.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette. The fucking thing would give him cancer, but it helped. His hands were still shaking. He sat, smoking, staring into the darkness, at whatever it was that was out there, for a long time. Then he turned over and went to sleep.
He turned over in the bed, to a position that would be comfortable for his back. The faint smell of perfume clung to the sheets. Physically, he was sated, but something in him was unsatisfied. Women, inevitably, were a disappointment. Especially if they succumbed too easily, and, of course, now they did.
There had always been something about him that attracted women. Even when he was young and skinny and trying to bulk up with milk shakes, the charm was developing. His older brother, with the movie star looks, gave little thought to the girls who flocked around him. To prove his power, foe once saw his younger brother in the Stork Club with a beautiful woman, moved in and ended up leaving with her. The second son studied girls, asked other girls about them: what did they like, what pleased them! From early on, the chase delighted him. One young woman described him to a friend as giving off light, not heat. Sex, she thought, was something for him to have done, accomplished; the pursuit was the exhilarating part.
He moved in a world that was totally incomprehensible to most young Irish Catholic boys. At a time when many of them were making acts of contrition after the mere thought of sex, hearing lectures by priests about the danger to their immortal souls of lust, the second son was attending prep schools with the sons of the Protestant rich. His father might send his daughters to Catholic school to get piety, but he wanted no such clerical drag on his sons. They went to Choate and Harvard. The stringent morals of the middle class did not apply to the gilded and frisky sons and daughters of the American aristocracy. At an age when many Catholic boys were struggling with the sinfulness of soul kissing, the second son already had a nickname for his penis (J.J.) and boasted to friends of its busy schedule. He had a few semiserious romances with “marriageable” girls, but the girls moved on, married others and retained affectionate memories of their relationships with him. He was not the sort of man one went mad with grief over when it ended; light, not heat.
In his midtwenties, he fell deeply, passionately in love for the first time, with a beautiful Danish journalist who worked at the newspaper where Kathleen worked. She reminded him, in fact, of his favorite sister — she was lighthearted, bright, eager for life. But she had met Hitler when she visited Germany on assignment for a Danish paper, and the FBI was suspicious that she might be a Nazi spy, so much so that they wiretapped her assignations with him. He thought the charges ludicrous, and talked of marrying her. But his father, who approved of a fling but was appalled at the thought of a marriage, moved in forcefully to break it up. The son, who was trying to carve an independent path, nonetheless would not openly defy his family, as Kathleen later would. Or perhaps he sensed in himself something Kathleen would tell a young man who fell in love with her, “I’m like Jack, incapable of deep affection.” That was not true — for Kathleen.
He would later write to the Danish woman from his command in the Pacific that she was the brightest spot in his twenty-six years of life. She had loved him, but knowing his father would never permit a marriage, had married another man she admitted she did not love. At times in his life he had wondered if things had been different, if he had married her, whether he would have found the heart’s ease that seemed to have escaped him.
He did not think deeply about the pattern he had fallen into with women, in which movie stars and secretaries alike came and went from his bed; perhaps to do so would have meant facing unpleasant truths. Like all members of his family, he scoffed at psychologizing. Action was the answer to life’s problems, not self-awareness. Those who knew him well thought there was a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to his pursuit of women. Cautious in so many other areas of his life, in this he took absurd risks that could have destroyed him politically, and at several times came close to doing so. Some of his friends thought he was competing with his father, who well into his sixties tried to seduce the women his sons brought home. (Certainly bizarre behavior: was the father trying to assert the primacy he had always known!) Others thought he found in risk a needed reminder that he was still alive. Once, the wife of a friend asked him why he was trying to behave like his father. Why was he unable to form deep attachments, courting scandal at a time when his career was beginning to blossom? He struggled with an answer and finally said — sadly, she thought — “I don’t know. I guess I can’t help it.”
He turned again in bed, restless. His wife was away on a trip. He found himself wishing she were there.
The marriage had nearly come unglued after she’d miscarried in her first pregnancy and he had been remote and preoccupied. But there were strong bonds that held them together. Two children, of course, and a third on the way, but there was more. Both had survived lonely childhoods, she from a broken family, he from one in which his parents were often absent. Both were consummate actors, self-inventors. Her performances, even more than his, gave his administration its cachet. And she had a will as iron as his own. She held herself aloof from the wildly physical competitions of his family; she won by refusing to play on anyone’s terms but her own. Unlike his mother, she would not simply pretend that infidelities didn’t exist. She knew how to punish him — by a witty barb, by a sullen silence, or by extravagance. With the last, was she saying, “See, I can be as reckless as you?” She did not bore him. He loved it when men looked at him with envy when he stood beside her. But there was no blueprint inside his head for marriage, other than that of his family. In that struggle, he identified with the winner, his father.
But lately, he had noticed, the pursuit, as easy as it had become, so much more glittering its prizes, was beginning to pall. He had telephoned a friend who knew of his infidelities, to say that he was in a room where there were two naked girls but he was reading The Wall Street Journal. “Does that mean I’m getting old!” he asked.
Perhaps he was simply moving away from old demons. His father was now a crippled old man, no longer a rival. His friends thought he seemed to be starting to settle into the role of family man, enjoying his children, having a new appreciation for his wife. No longer the second son, he was now the star around whom the family orbited.
Or perhaps he was beginning to dispense with his desperate grip on youth. He had been a boy so long, the persona was hard to shed. If he had projected himself far into the future — which he was loath to do — he would have had trouble picturing himself as an aging rake, like his father, prowling the houses in Palm Beach and Hyannis, barging unannounced into the bedrooms of women who were wives of his guests or girlfriends of his sons. He had joked about it (Lock your doors, the ambassador likes to prowl) and saw his father as a Rabelaisian character, but he could not see himself aging in that way. The one thing he had an absolute horror of being was a joke. No, perhaps it was time to invent another persona — statesman, family man, sage. No young woman had yet looked at him with pity, but the time would come, even for him. Not soon, but it would come.
He turned again, the pain in his back a dull ache. He was alone in his bed, and sleep would not come. He was awake for a long time, but finally, it did.
Pierre Salinger, the press secretary, tapped her on the arm as she walked into the West Wing.
“Got a minute? The president would like to see you.”
“Of course,” she said. What else did he expect her to say: “Nah, some other time, I have to wash my hair? When the leader of the Free World called, you went.
She walked into the office, and he was standing at the window, looking out. When she walked in he turned and said, “Belvedere Blade, what the hell is going on in that town of yours? It’s all over the Post and the Times.”
He walked back to his desk and sat down. She sat in a chair opposite the desk.
“It’s pretty bad,” she said. She told h
im about James Washington and how he was helping to lead the fight for new housing, and how his wife and child had died for it. “All he had was this crummy little house in Niggertown, and they were trying to take it away from him. And he said no, he wouldn’t go. And he’s still saying no.”
“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. He picked up a pencil and began drumming on the desk with its eraser. She had noticed that he was never completely still; even sitting down, he tapped his feet, drummed his fingers. There was a restless energy in him that never seemed to switch off.
“People are saying crazy things,” she told him. “Like they’re going to bus in drug addicts. These normally sane people, they’re going nuts.”
“In the nineteenth century the mobs in Charlestown burned down a convent full of Irish nuns,” he said. “They thought the nuns were stealing babies. It’s the same. No different.”
“Some people say,” she suggested quietly, “that you haven’t done enough on civil rights.”
He looked at her, intently. She didn’t drop her gaze but looked into those bright blue eyes. He’d asked her to tell the truth. Then he nodded, drumming the pencil again.
“Do you read history, Belvedere Blade?”
“It was my best subject.”
“Well, history is full of magnificent failures. Great causes that went down the old tubes. It’s easy for you people to stand out there and throw rocks because I’m not moving fast enough, but I’m in here, and it’s not so easy. Timing is everything, in history. I’m going to have to kick a lot of butt, I’m probably going to have to let some idiots get appointed to judgeships. I’m going to get this goddamned bill through, and a fat lot of credit I’ll get for it from you people!”
He seemed to be pouting a little; odd, she’d never imagined presidents pouted. But she thought about what he’d said. In all her history texts, presidents made great speeches and took heroic stands. You never read about them wheeling and dealing or appointing assholes, or getting pissed when they didn’t get credit. But that was probably what history was really like.
He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “So what’s going to happen? Is this thing going to go up like a tinderbox? Christ, I don’t need that right on my doorstep.”
“I don’t know. It could get bad. Now, I think the Negroes won’t stop. They were scared at first, a lot of them, but now — I don’t think anyone wants to turn back.”
“No idea who set the fire?”
“Some people are saying it was the Klan. Or some other crazy white supremacist group. White people are scared too.”
He shook his head. “Stuff like this starting in the North could really screw up my bill. The race thing is a lot more complicated, up here. Listen, let me know if you sense there’s going to be bad trouble. There are things we can do.”
She said, “I have this friend, he’s Negro, and he’s helping to lead the protest. He’s smart, and he’s educated, and he’s not going to stay in the back of the bus anymore. He’s as American as I am. His father grew up being careful, watching what he said around white people, but Don’s not like that. He’s going to make us actually do what we say America’s all about. I think there are a lot of Negroes like that. They won’t wait anymore.”
He glared at her.
“Do you think I don’t understand about not wanting to wait? They wouldn’t let my father into clubs because he was Irish. They didn’t want me to be president because I was Catholic. You tell your friend that he isn’t the only one that had to fight for what this country is all about. Tell him I understand.”
“He’d say understanding isn’t enough. That things have to change.”
“Jesus Christ, I know that!” he said. “What the fuck do you think we’ve been doing these past few months, sitting on our asses?” Then he remembered he was talking to a woman. “Excuse me,” he said.
“You told me to tell you the truth.”
He looked at her. “I did, didn’t I? Well, thanks, Belvedere Blade, you’ve made my day.”
She walked to the door, but before she left he said, “OK, keep doing it. I did ask. It’s a pain in the butt sometimes, but I asked for it.”
Driving back home, she wondered if she should tell Charlie about her off-the-record conversations with Kennedy. She decided not to. The president was using her to get information, to talk to someone close to real people, not Washington insiders who tended to share the same point of view. And she was using him, to learn about power and how it worked, something she hadn’t seen that much of in her young life.
She thought about what he had said about timing and history. She was beginning to see that there were great forces at play in the world, and even a man as powerful as Kennedy could not control them all. Don Johnson was a part of those forces, in the vanguard of a people seeking long-delayed justice. He and the others were pressing Kennedy, forcing him to move faster than he might think prudent, but also creating the momentum that would make it possible for him to move. The southern sheriffs, with their fire hoses and their police dogs, were helping to propel it. But Kennedy needed the support of the North to get the bill passed, and the North had to feel its own peace and tranquillity was secure. But little Belvedere could turn out to be a big problem for Kennedy; it was no surprise he was watching it.
She felt a sudden shiver through her body as she realized that a national drama was playing itself out, and she was a part of it. A small part, but it was incredibly thrilling to be this close. This was why people plotted and lied and betrayed to get close to power, so they could feel like she felt at this moment. Nothing else — except maybe sex — was as compelling. And of course that was why the two were so often linked. She was already a bit addicted herself. OK, a lot addicted. She thought that if anybody tried to take this job away from her, to say she couldn’t ever be a journalist again, she’d rip their eyes out. Never again could she go back to being what she had once been, a woman who got told, who bought all the rules that men made. Never again.
She drove home, and because she had promised Karen that she would make her a special treat for tonight, she decided to try the new cake mix she’d bought. As she dumped the mix in the blender she thought this was very bizarre, that she’d just been talking to the President of the United States and now she was in the kitchen baking a cake. Her life had certainly taken some unexpected turns.
As she was finishing the frosting on the cake, the doorbell rang and it was Harry; he always dropped by on Tuesdays to deliver the cleaning. Lately, she’d made sure she was out when he stopped by, but she opened the door and invited him in. He glanced at the cake, and she offered him a piece. She poured him a glass of milk, and he eagerly took a bite of the cake. She remembered, with a pang, how she had enjoyed cooking for him early in their marriage. He always ate with such gusto.
“This is good cake, Mary. It’s really good.”
“It’s a new mix. I thought I’d try it.”
“I like it.” He took another forkful. “An awful thing, about that fire. Think they’ll get the guys?”
“I hope so. We saw them. The photographer and I. But they were going fast with their lights off, so we weren’t much help to the police.”
“You were in that house, Mary. That was dangerous. It was on fire.”
“I tried to go up the stairs, but the flames were too high. I kept thinking about Karen. What if it had been Karen up in that room? I had to try.”
“What kind of animals could burn a child to death? I mean, I don’t like the idea of busing in a lot of niggers and riffraff, but to do that!”
“Oh, Harry, that story isn’t true. It’s just a rumor. Nobody is getting bused.”
“Everybody believes it. Everybody I talk to. They’re scared of things getting like they are in Cambridge, with riots and tear gas.”
“That won’t happen here.”
“Listen,” he said, “I bought the new building in Frederick. I mean, I bought it for Mr. Gutwald. I have to hir
e a driver and two countermen. I’ll be glad to get out of the damned truck.”
“Harry, that’s great.”
“Well, it’s going to take a lot of work, especially at first. A lot of hours to get the place going. Also, there’s a hobby shop in the same shopping center, and the owner is retiring. I told Mr. Gutwald he ought to grab it. I checked it out. It makes a good profit. The markups are fantastic, and you get a lot of repeat business.”
“Is he interested?”
“Maybe. He just sticks his money in the bank; he’s one of these old conservative Germans. I try to tell him he ought to make his money work for him.”
“Harry, you sound like a capitalist.”
He laughed. “I guess I do. But there’s money to be made around here, Mary. The area has been depressed, but in a few years it’s going to be so built up you won’t recognize it. There’s going to be millions made by people who can look ahead. But the people with money around here are too conservative.”
“Mr. Gutwald has the money, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, but he lets it sit in the bank and collect four percent. I think I’m persuading him. He figured his son Bert would take over the business, but Burt likes it out in San Diego and doesn’t want to come back. So I think, in some ways, I’m a substitute for Bert.”
“Things seem to be going very well.”
“Finally. You know, it’s taken me a long time to grow up. I read the other day that Bob Feller and his father used to spend hours in the backyard, throwing the ball. I never bothered. I used to cut practice so often the coach threatened to throw me off the team. I wish he had. I wonder why nobody ever kicked me in the pants, made me wise up.”
“Everybody liked you. You were the most popular boy in school.”
“Yeah, but high school isn’t life. When I went down to see the guidance counselor — remember old Haskell? — I him I was going to be a major league baseball player, and he said, ‘That’s nice.’ You’d think he might have suggested I should think about something else, just in case, but all he said was ‘that’s nice.’”
