-Caveat Lector-
A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
--- Dan Quayle
Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye
JFK Jr.: My Story
By J. William Medley
J. William Medley is a veteran journalist who doesn't exist. This piece was
written by Mickey Kaus, whose political commentary can be found at
www.kausfiles.com. Posted Tuesday, July 27, 1999, at 10:00 a.m. PT
E-Mail This Article
There will be a lot written in the coming days and months by people
who didn't really know John Kennedy. Those of us who had the pleasure of his
company, if only for a few, seemingly fleeting moments, will have to
struggle on to keep his true memory alive.
JFK Jr., I Hardly Knew Ye
I first met JFK Jr. at a fancy party for his magazine in a swank
Fifth Avenue apartment. It was the sort of apartment he could have lived in,
if he'd wanted to, but he chose to make his home in the gritty industrial
area of TriBeCa. John was wearing one of his trademark tailored suits. I
made eye contact and smiled. I thought I saw the flicker of a responsive
grin cross his face. He wheeled around, turning his back to me, and started
to talk to someone on the other side of the room, a malnourished blond woman
who had been trying to get his attention. I instantly recognized this as
something his mother, Jackie, must have taught him. Who else could have
disciplined him to show such natural grace and reticence, coupled with the
noblesse oblige to talk to those you might otherwise prefer to avoid?
After that, our relationship stabilized. We dined frequently in New
York, albeit in different restaurants and with different people. We went to
concerts and movies. One encounter was especially evocative, I think, of the
sort of man he was. One afternoon, I was Rollerblading in Central Park when
I spotted him. He was blading a few yards away, lean and handsome as ever,
wearing the tank top and the backward baseball cap I'd come to know. I had
just started to skate toward him when he saw me. Almost immediately, he sped
ahead. With his long powerful strides, in no time at all he was a football
field in front of me. He looked back, and I recognized that old Kennedy
competitiveness, the playful funhouse spirit epitomized by the famous
impromptu touch football games at Hyannis Port. He was challenging me to
catch him! I tried, panting and sweating. His challenge called forth
resources in me I didn't know I had--he had that effect on people! But for
an unfortunate encounter with an incompetent sorbet peddler, I would have
caught him and shared a good laugh.
had a chance to make light of the incident when I next saw him, near the
offices of his beloved George. I was in the elevator, heading to the 20th
floor to pick up a kill fee for a piece I'd submitted to another Hachette
publication. At the 14th floor, the door opened, and there he was. It was
just like John to use the common elevator instead of, say, chartering a
helicopter to pluck him off the 14th floor and deposit him on the 18th, or
buying a rocket pack, or rappelling up the side of the building, all of
which, I knew, he could have chosen. Instead, he was here, in an elevator,
with me.
I hadn't seen him in such a long time, I immediately burst out my
greetings, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. I added a few suggestions for
the future editorial direction of George. He took it all in stride, pausing
for a moment, obviously wondering whether to show emotion. "Oh ... uh ...
hi," he stammered. I found this humility, this forced gracelessness--when of
course some modicum of suavity would have come so easily to
him--breathtakingly charming. I could tell he wanted to call me by my name
but was afraid that would hurt the feelings of the others in the elevator
who perhaps didn't know him so well. One often had this sense when talking
to John, this sense of reserve, of intimacies withheld.
hen he did something that showed a side of him I'd only heard about. He
looked at me, squarely, directly--the effect was powerful--and asked: "Who
are you? Do I know you?" I was stunned by the philosophical depth of his
questions. In a few seconds, he had penetrated to the core of my identity,
indeed to the very question of identity. Who was I? Was it ever possible to
really know another person? I've pondered these issues ever since. And to
think there are some who say his good looks made up for a lack of
intellectual heft!
And so it went for years. I would run into him. He might say
something insightful, or boisterous, like the time he jokingly yelled, "Are
you insane?" when I came up behind him as he was using an ATM machine. But
despite the warmth of our friendship, there were clear limits, boundaries to
our relationship that we both recognized. He never took me sailing with him,
for example, or included me in his intimate family outings. Ultimately,
there was no getting around the fact that I was a journalist, his natural
enemy.
here came a time when an editor, to whom I'd casually mentioned my
acquaintance with John, asked me to write a short piece about one of his
mother's book projects. I agonized about it for several long minutes. Was I
only getting this assignment because of my connection with John? Would I be
guilty of cashing in on our relationship? Would John feel I was betraying
his trust, given his Kennedyesque obsession with privacy? And, perhaps most
difficult, could I see Jackie honestly, on her own terms, and not just as
John's mother? Ultimately, I decided to write the piece, and a few details
about John and me found their way into the text.
John must have taken offense--though at what I can't imagine--because
our friendship foundered after that. We no longer spoke. A gulf grew between
us. It was a deeply saddening time.
His too-early departure, therefore, is especially tragic to me
because our relationship can now never be healed. But I will always deeply
treasure the mementos of our friendship he left with me. There is the
rejection letter I received from George, which he was too modest to put his
own name on. (He must have kept the original, however, because what I have
looks like a duplicate.) And I still have a copy of the restraining order he
obtained when I attempted, in an excess of neighborly zeal, to climb the
fire escape in the loft next to his in that gritty industrial area he called
home. Characteristically, he didn't sign it, or even add one of his famous
cheery little messages. Such was the man. I will miss him.
J. William Medley is a veteran journalist who doesn't exist. This piece was
written by Mickey Kaus, whose political commentary can be found at
www.kausfiles.com.
http://www.slate.com/Features/jfkjr/jfkjr.asp
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
---Edmund Burke
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation
has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more
efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
--- Adolph Hitler,
'Berlin Daily', April 15th, 1935
Bard
Visit me at:
The Center for Exposing Corruption in the Federal Government
http://www.xld.com/public/center/center.htm
Federal Government defined:
....a benefit/subsidy protection racket!
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