Barry N. Malzberg - In the Stone House.pdf - Barry N. Malzberg - widez2

In the Stone House

By Barry N. Malzberg

1992

11/22/63Joe Kennedy, Jr . wipes the stock of the rifle again, his hands shaking, then, dissatisfied, breaks

it open for the third time, making sure that the shells are still there, that the trigger is properly positioned.

He reassembles the gear slowly, cursing the damned M-1, cursing his own stupidity in putting so much

dependency upon a weapon which was no damned good. He should have had better equipment, not

relied on the old Army supply service. But then getting better equipment would have brought some

attention and he didn't want that. You had to carry this on in secrecy. Joe Kennedy, Jr . knows all about

secrecy now, has counted upon it, has made it his mistral and the source ofall his splendor . Too late,

Jack. Too late for all of this, Joe Kennedy mumbles. He positions the cartons on the floor, peers out the

window. A scattering of crowd, good,the street cleared, better, no sign of the motorcade yet in the

distance. A little behind schedule but nothing ominous. Jack and the powder puff would be along soon

enough.

Joe Kennedy, once President of the United States, now reduced (in his own mind if not quite in the

estimation of the press) to sniveling bum, sniveling potential assassin, perches on the sixth floor of the

Dallas School Book Depository, waiting for the presidential motorcade. He will sight his rifle on his

brother's tousled head, hope for the best,pull the trigger. It is a difficult business, assassinating your

younger brother, crazier yet if you are an ex-President of the United States, 1952-1956, which raises

fratricide to the level of lunacy but there you are. It is the last great service, Joe knows, which he can

perform, not only for patrimony but for the country. Jack is out of control, the arrogant little bastard had

never been trustworthy in the first place but to a certain point he had been manipulable , now he was no

longer.

You had to save theplan, that was all: the plan was all that mattered and Jack had broken the plan,

shattered everything, the bastard. Joe thought of this, thought of that, considered all of the dreadful but

necessary implications of his position, watching the sun drop little pools of uneven light on the dusty

surfaces of the cartons of books, feeling the old clarity coming back. It had been a long time since he had

felt this level of control but here it was, atlast he knew what he was after, what had to be done. In the

distance, he thought he could hear the sound of shouting, the thin tremor of drums and then as he arched

his body, peered awkwardly out the window, he could see the thin movement of the crowd which could

only indicate, yes, that the motorcade was coming. His breath was high in his throat, perched there like

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some enormous bird. Joe felt alive, felt more in possession ofhimself than he had in this long, dreadful

exiled time. Well, he would wait it out, that wasall. This was a serious business. There was nothing

frivolous about it. The time for frivolity was gone.

11/22/46I don't want it, Joe Jr . said to Jack, the big strapping jock. I was never cut out for politics.

This is ridiculous. Jack laughed at him, winked riotously, hit him on the back. You may not be cut out for

it, Jack said, but you got it. Mr. Smith goes toWashington . Shake ' emup good, Joe. You're a fucking

war hero.

Going to be a lot of war heroes down there, Bobby said. War heroes are going to be a dime a dozen

right through the decade. Sure going to be a shake-up time there, right, Dad?

Oh sure, Joe Sr. said, beaming at the three of them. Joe hadn't seen the old man in this kind of mood on

land since before the war. This was what they called a family, the four of them getting together after the

election to figure out what the right move would be. But that was all a bunch of crap, Joe knew, all the

old man wanted to do was to look at them and gloat. His three sons, the Congressman ready for his first

term, everything lining up after the war just as the old man had promised. Feels good, doesn't it?the old

man said. Well, it's a way to welcome theboys home, right? I promised you a homecoming.

I didn't want this, Joe Jr . said. Going up against the old man was a losing cause but he had to go on the

record, if he had taken bombers out overGermany then he could go up against the Ambassador to the

Court of St. James's. Couldn't he? But it was allcrap, he couldn't stand up to it. No one could, the old

man rode you down one way or the other and you just had to take it. I could get used to it though, he

said.

Oh, you can get used to it, the old man said. Power is fun, even if a freshman Congressman hasn't got

any. And the living is easy.

Lots of women, Jack said. Don't forget the women. You never forgot anything, Bobby said. In your

whole life you let nothing go by. I think I'll bail out of this, Dad, Bobby said. I have business downtown.

We have business to settle, the old man said. You'll go in a few minutes, when I say you can. Joe, I want

a staff put together. You know the names, but I'd like to hear what you have to say if you have any ideas.

Oh, I have ideas, Joe said. I have lots of ideas. You'll never listen to any of them. Hyannisport , Joe

thought. It always comes back to Hyannisport . Wherever you go, however hard you fly, whatever risks

you take, you wind up in a room in a house on the beach where the old man tells you what to do. Why

don't you just go ahead and fix it?he said to the Ambassador. I'm sure anything you want is okay with

me.

I'll tell you this right now, Jack said. I don't want any part of it. I don't want to go to Washington and I

don't want to be anyone's aide-in-waiting. I'm going to go back to school.

You think so, the Ambassador said. You think that's really the plan?

I'll get a graduate degree, Jack said. I always wanted to teach history. Maybe I'll go to law school. He

yawned. No Congress for me, he said, no agenda, no roll calls,no quorums. I had enough of that on the

high seas, thank you very much.

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I'm too young, Bobby said. Don't look at me, Dad. It may be a young man's country again, but Joe can't

have a twenty-two-year-old assistant. Besides, they'll just say that I got put on the payroll to keep me off

the streets.

You see? Joe said to the Ambassador, it's a family revolt. Your sons are standing up and being counted.

No aide-de-camp in the room, no assistant either. So just go ahead and get the Honey Fitz delegation,

because I don't give a shit. It's all the same to me.

You're a defiant prick the old man said. You know that? I give you everything and you shit on me. You

think a few stripes, a couple of bombs, and you're hot shit. Well, you're the same little bum you were

before the war, you know? Who do you think pulled you those assignments?

Joe felt the old anger. Hyannisport , Hyannisport , throwing sand at the beach, they could get you every

time. That seemed to be part of the deal, you thought you could get away from it but the old man could

always get you back.

Leave me alone, Joe said. Just leave me alone. You wanted me to run for Congress, I ran. You wanted

me to make speeches, I made war hero speeches. You want a staff, appoint a staff. Just leave me out of

it, you know? You don't give a damn anyway, so justhave it your way. Bobby said, Joe, calm down. It's

okay.

He's just ragging you, Jack said. That's his way. You know that he means well. He's just kidding you,

trying to get you to pay attention, right, Dad? But I think we should ease off, go for a swim or something.

You'll go when I say, the Ambassador said. Jack you're going to Washington with him. There's no time

to waste and there's no time to screw around either. Bobby, you can go to law school, we won't need

you for a few years but you're going to check in and stay close.

I don't want any part of this, Jack said. I want to study history, be a professor at Wellesley. Maybe

Duke. Show the girls the way through the New Deal or maybe the Middle Ages. I've had all the

goddamned politics I'll ever want. Jack paused, looked at the Ambassador, then took out a handkerchief

and wiped his forehead slowly. I really am going to Washington, he said. You really mean it, don't you?

The academy is just a dream, isn't it?

Just about, the Ambassador said. I told you, we have no time for that. We have to get down to cases.

There's a country out there.

Oh, there's a country out there, Joe Jr .thought , it's been out there for a hundred and seventy years now,

waiting for us. And now the Ambassador figures it's about time that he took it. The sprawl of the land,

the heat of the old man's need, the sense of injustice tilted within him, and for a moment it was as if the

walls had come down and he could see everything, could see what was in store for all of them, the poor,

foolish damned Ambassador too, but then mercifully the walls went up again and he could see only the

bare surfaces of the conference room in Hyannisport . You really do mean it, don't you, he said, you

meant it all.

From the start, the Ambassador said.Before you were ever born. Before I was ever born, I meant it.

And you too, Joe. You mean it.Because you'd better.

11/22/63 It wasn't easy, Joe Kennedy, Jr . thinks, to progress from President to one-term President to

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ex-President to sniveling bum to assassin all in a seven-year period, it was an arc of history which

refracted by opposites the old man's journey and might have been thought impossible if he, Joe

Kennedy, Jr ., hadn't proven that it was possible. But you had to work at it, you really did have to put

your best attention to it because the country loved the few ex-Presidents it had so very much and paid

such kind attention to them. But it helped if your younger brother had succeeded you as President and

had found his own distinction and style in such a way as to absorb your own traces, and it also helped if

you really needed to escape, if you needed somehow to sink back into the morass that his life had

become since the Ambassador had looked at him in 1956 and had pulled the plug. You're through,

laddie , the Ambassador had said, you've gone as far with this as you're going to go. You are not going

to run in November, you are going to announce your withdrawal in Jack's favor right now, or things will

get very hot for all of us. Do you understand that? Joe had understood it very well.

He had always understood the Ambassador. Maybe that was the problem, his father had been

refractory of Joe Jr . from the start; Joe had felt not exactly like an extension of the Ambassador but

simply a spare part, something extra that could be screwed in, unstuck, manipulated, it didn't matter, he

was always around. Sometimes he had wanted to stand up to the Ambassador, he had given him a mild

push in 1946 when he hadn't wanted to run for Congress, but that had collapsed pretty soon and then he

had fought a little harder in '48 when the Ambassador had said that now was the time to go for the

Governor's chair, a really shitty job then and now. In '51 Governor Joe Kennedy, Jr . had really struggled

when the Ambassador had said, okay, now is the time, Truman is out of the way and we are going to

stick it to this ignorant old general and take the presidency. For a few wild moments Joe had thought that

he would beat down the Ambassador through simple expediency, make a speech in the Capitol like

Silent Cal had in 1919 and simply pull down the temple, but he hadn't been able to do it then either.

There was something very persuasive about the Ambassador, very tough, very ungiving . Ask Rose, ask

Kathleen. Well, ask Rose now anyway. Ask Bobby if you could find him. That had been the worst of it,

going out for the presidency, going through the worst imaginable campaign and the terrible events of the

convention when he had had to break Adlai open right there in front of everyone, but since then it had

gotten a little easier. It always got easier when you simply gave up, Jack had warned him and it was true,

nothing had been as bad as that struggle in '52 and the convention, even '56 when Joe had had the plug

pulled on him was easy in comparison. But once he had broken, once he had come down all the way to

sniveling bum territory, it had been as if he had an entirely new perspective on things.

The perspective was new every day. Now Joe Jr . had a real grasp of the situation. More and more he

was seeing it the Ambassador's way. Once you gave it up and gave the Ambassador his points, admitted

what he was and that he had probably been right all along, everything else fell into line. Still, Joe Jr . knew

that he was fucked up in his own mind. He couldn't figure out if he was doing this for the Ambassador or

against him, whether it was his last great service for his father or a terrible act of defiance. It didn't matter,

he supposed. This introspection, this wondering, this internalization, it just got you nowhere in the first

place, you had to go on like the Ambassador himself and simply do things. The motorcade was in sight

now, he thought he could see it, the lead cars of the agents. The crowd was straggling into separate

ragged lines on either side of thestreet, the first advance patrol car came down the empty street between

the barricades. It wouldn't be much longer now. Joe Kennedy, Jr . fondled the rifle and thought about this

and that, thought about the nature of conditions and the question of his own sacrifice. He wanted one

clearshot, that was all. One plug, one bolt of revenge, one pure thunderbolt, as Emily Dickinson said,to

scalp his living soul. After that he would take his chances just like the rest of the world; he would come

into a cause-and-effect world where things simply happened or failed to happen as a result of

consequence. Oh Jack, he thought, it could have been different, but even as he murmured this he knew it

was bullshit, it could have been no different at all. The old man had worked it out in his head long before

any of them were born, had lain on a thousand pillows of resentment running the pictures through his head

over and again, and by the time the four sons came along, they were nothing other than aspects of the

plan like angels in the mind of God. The whole thing wasdeterminism, that was all.One pure thunderbolt.

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To scalp his living soul.

10/22/63 I called you in, JFK said, because whatever has happened to us, whatever you've become,

you're still a President and you're my brother. So I want you to know that I'm pulling the plug on all of

this. Bobby is not going to get my endorsement. Bobby will never be President.

Joe looked at him.Past security, past the guards, past Salinger and O'Donnell into the Oval Office.

Nobody had even looked at him. It had been as if he were dead. Only Caroline had waved at him when

she saw her uncle go by. Caroline was probably the last friend Joe Jr . had in the family, now that he

thought about it. What are you saying?he said. What does this mean to me?

It means that the dynasty is coming to a roaring halt, JFK said. He smiled at Joe. It means that Bobby is

being dismissed from the Cabinet this afternoon. A press release has already been prepared. He is not

being allowed toresign, he has been fired as Attorney General, comprende ? And I will do everything

within my power to make sure that he never runs for office again. The line is running out, Joe. There will

be no more.

I don't understand, Joe said. I truly do not understand. His mind was as clear, as vacant as it had been

the day he had been elected in 1952 and had come to understand that he had no agenda, not the shred of

an agenda for the eight years of the presidency which stretched before him, and that the Ambassador had

no real agenda either, they had been dumped by the wave of history but they were on the beach. Why

are you doing this?he said to JFK. And why did you call me here to tell me that? What did you think I

could do?

Well, nothing at all, JFK said. Call it a family courtesy. You can tell it to the Ambassador, that's what

you can do for me. Tell it to OldJoe, break the word before he gets it from the radio. No Bobby in his

future. The old man will shit a brick, but frankly, that's his problem. I have no concern for that now.

But why?Joe said. He seemed to be fixed on this point. He somehow couldn't get beyond it. That was

what came from being your old man's first son, you had to take all of the mistakes, make them so that the

others could have a smoother deal. Some deal they had. The deal was me, then you, then Bobby, Joe

said. Now you're breaking the deal. There seemed to be a whining tone to his voice. In just a few

moments he would cry. Then what? What did that mean?The crying Mr. President. I can't tell the

Ambassador, Joe Jr . said. He'll go wild. He'll kill me.

You're fifty years old, JFK said. You've been the President of the United States. You're afraid some

ancient fart with a cane is going to kill you? Is that what he's done to us?For what?For what purpose?

But why?Joe said again. Bobby was a good Attorney General. He never gave you any trouble. He got

rid of Hoffa. He's got Hoover held down, the first guy in thirty years to do that. I couldn't do that. He's

the next in line.

Because the country isn't our playpen, JFK said, because there has to be something else but the

Ambassador's craziness and our own knee reflexes twitching away.Because it has to be broken

sometime. I'm going to go for Lyndon. He's taken the shit admirably, he's kept out of the way,he's even

been as polite as an ignorant Texan can be. Let him run the place for a while, I just want to go out and

get laid which constitutionally I have to do now anyway. Maybe Lyndon will tame his sex life a little.

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Barry N. Malzberg - In the Stone House.pdf

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