Jackie and Me(57)

The plain truth is I don’t need an identity for the simple

reason that I long ago found it. So I disclaim this club, even if they do, for some perverse reason, want me as a member, and Raul—well, he doesn’t exactly disclaim me, but he does periodically despair. It’s touching, really, how much he wants to save me. I get pamphlets and monographs and, though I have no car, bumper stickers. I get dragged to lectures on

Bleecker Street, I get referred to therapists and, where that fails, theorists: Theodor Lessing on Jewish self-hatred, Anna Freud on denial, somebody named Foucault, who leaves me arctically cold. Even in our calmest moments, I can feel Raul combing through my words and deeds for the thread that will unravel me. He thinks it highly significant, for example, that I listen to Joan Sutherland and watch Magnum, P.I.

Once, I happened to refer to some fellow in passing as “a

Mary Louise,” and Raul sat straight up, like a mariner putting a finger to the wind.

“‘Mary Louise,’” he said.



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“What?” I answered. “That’s how we say it.”

“Who is we?”

“People of my generation.”

“Like friend of Dorothy? Do you also say this?”

“On occasion.”

“Do you always speak in code? About these matters?”

“I consider it a wink.”

“At whom are you winking?”

“The people who would get it. I don’t know why you’re

making it so complicated.”

“What I’m suggesting is that there is no need to wink

anymore.”

“No need not to.”

His mouth folded down a fraction.

“So what you are saying is you are still scared.”

You can see how impossible he can be. I demanded to

know exactly what I should be scared of, and do you know

what he said? “Whatever scared you then. Jail. Ruin. A mother’s tears. Oh, please believe me, I am sympathetic, but you are a retired gentleman living comfortably in Manhattan.

No one can touch you. Why should you hide behind codes?”

I believe I may have said something about decorum not

being the same as hiding—decorum, to the contrary, being

one of the building blocks of civilization—but I could hear my voice once more climbing to its highest register, and that to me is always a sign that (drawing a metaphor from a sport I despise) I have landed in the rough. What this means in practical terms is that we have regular fallings-out, Raul and I, and we withdraw to our respective corners of the city.

204





LOUIS BAYARD


Weeks, even months go by before one of us sends out a conciliatory phone call. Nothing is said of the previous argument (I don’t always recall what it was about) and we carry on in our way. Given the difference in our ages, I suppose I should be grateful he still considers me a project of interest, and I try to find ways to let him know I’m not completely a lost cause, even if I do draw the line at Foucault.

No, all in all, I consider it a good thing that we haven’t had a complete breach, only because the house has been a little echoey since Bobby Junior went to law school. He calls every so often, reversing the long-distance charge from Charlottesville, but it rarely ends well. We had one particularly testy exchange last winter that ended with him yelling: “Christ, I’m not him!”

Well, did I ever say he was? From the beginning, all I’ve

ever maintained is that Bobby Junior, foremost among his

siblings and cousins, has the intellect and charisma, the

innate qualities of leadership, to carry America forward. As Jack manifestly did. And if I can be a part of helping him realize his God-given potential, then I am happy to serve. It’s what I’ve always done, and it’s what I’ve always said. Every great leader needs a great friend.

After some introspection, I can see that Jack was, in

one respect at least, the lucky one. He didn’t have a raft of Kennedys getting there before him. A boy like Bobby Junior looks around now and sees nothing but footprints, all deeper than his own. That creates an enormous pressure, and I can see how carrying on, as I like to do, about his father and

uncle—being the repository for family lore that I’ve always



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been—well, that might add a little bit to the pressure. So, for now, I hold my tongue, I keep my distance.

But here’s the thing. When you throw in your lot with

a Catholic family like the Kennedys, you’re never alone for long. Relation after relation comes your way. They stay in your guest room, they ask you up for the holidays, or they

just ring you out of the blue to seek an opinion on a tres—

tle farm table. I talk to Eunice practically every day, and I just helped the Smiths decorate their Bridgehampton place.

Michael and his wife want me to do the same with their

house in Virginia. I had a swell time with Courtney and

her husband at Trader Vic’s, and when Timmy Shriver graduated from Yale recently, I even threw a little celebration chez moi. A lovely evening—I believe I sang The Mikado all the way through, swords and everything, and I wasn’t even drunk. It’s true that I’m well on in years—sixty-five