Jackie and Me(94)

“Would this have made a difference to you? Meeting

Ross?”

I reached for my glass, tightened the cord of my bathrobe. “I suppose he’s younger.”

“Why?”

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LOUIS BAYARD


“That’s how it works, isn’t it? Younger people find other

younger people.”

“Is that how it worked for you?”

“Oh,” I said, with a flap of my hand. “Don’t go by me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I took the road less traveled by, I guess.”

It’s funny, I used to have a sort of speech lined up for these occasions. Yes, I would say, I could have done the obvious thing, the majority thing—settled down with someone, had a family even—but what could have been a more rewarding life than being Jack Kennedy’s best friend? No, sir, if that were the only destiny I was to be granted, I couldn’t have asked for more. The words were all lined up, but for some

reason, they wouldn’t come out. I said:

“Maybe you should get back to your Ross. He’s probably

wondering where you are.”

“He knows.”

“And he approves?”

“It is not his to approve or not.”

“Well,” I said. “Seems to me if—if you feel strongly about

somebody—you ought to want to keep that person around.”

“Ah, you are a love monopolist, Lem.”

Now, I certainly never introduced the word love or the word monopoly, but I admit that I’m curiously traditional on some questions. You can take the boy out of Pittsburgh, I reminded him, but not the Pittsburgh out of the boy, at least not the whole way.

“Papi, shall I explain my relationship with Ross? In terms

that have nothing to do with geography?”



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333

“If you must.”

“No matter what we do with our evenings, he wants to

wake up in the morning with me. No, I mean, to me.”

“I fail to see the distinction.”

“Suppose I was to stay with you tonight. Tomorrow

morning, I tell you this from experience, you would awaken

in a state of deepest confusion. You would not be able to say, reliably, who I am or who you are.”

“I take pills to help me sleep. There’s no crime.”

“The point is you are the kind of man who needs to wake

up alone.”

The verdict had been gathering the whole time without

my knowledge. Without my consent. And what, after all,

does it say about a man’s character? I’m here to tell you that Jack Kennedy would have been the happiest fellow on earth if he could have woken up alone every morning. Can you honestly imagine him lying face-to-face with a girl? Watching her slumber? Waiting for her eyes to tremble into sentience?

Of course not. Two adults had entered into a transaction.

You might call that brutish, I call it knowing your nature.

Knowing it well enough never to promise anything that lies

outside it. Only now, having uttered the credo, do I realize that I have been Jack’s student. And that the pulse of that other life—the possibility of being someone other—was just something an old man tells himself.

It ended well, all in all. No lachrymose goodbyes. Raul

still has hopes for my soul and still has improving literature

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LOUIS BAYARD


he’s longing for me to read and, all in all, he enjoyed his gambol with the Mandrell sisters, and he enjoyed me, too, though he won’t always admit it, and he says he looks forward to the next round of pop-culture flotsam I float his way and to whatever else follows.

“Lem,” he said. “You are a continuing education.”

So we parted on the same terms as we’d met. Silly me, trying to queer that arrangement. If I play my cards right, if I don’t fly off at the first offense, his hairy toes will be found on my ottoman for as long as we both choose. I call that a victory.

Still, the frowny part of Raul’s soul must have lingered

because, the other day, I decided to take down all the framed photographs from my west-facing living-room wall. It was strictly an experiment in design, but all the same I found

myself apologizing out loud to the people in each picture.

“So sorry, Mr. Kennedy,” for here was a snapshot from his

1963 birthday party (when he was mostly paralyzed). “Not

to worry, Kick,” for there we were, the two of us, goofing for the camera at Palm Beach, Christmas 1940. And look! Me and Bobby on a diving trip off the Bahamas. Me and Bobby

Junior with Masai warriors in Kenya.

As for Jack, well, I gave up apologizing to him, for he was in most of the photographs. Clapping an arm around me at Hyannisport. Feeding the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square.

Here was his Choate yearbook photo: “To Lem. A neat guy

and a swell gent. You’re aces with me. Best luck now and

always, you horse’s arse.”

I handled each photo with the greatest care, blowing

away its harvest of dust and finding the most stable pile on



JACKIE & ME