Benny Jay: Me And Chappaquiddick

I was never a big fan of the Kennedys. I’d like to tell you it was all about principles — they were just a little too right of center for me. But, in reality, it’s mostly envy. They had money and got the girls and I didn’t. That about sums it up. I’d like to pretend that I’m all deep and everything, but really I’m not.

That’s not to say I wasn’t fascinated by them. I was particularly obsessed with the accident at Chappaquiddick, especially back in 1979 when Teddy Kennedy was running against Jimmy Carter, and I had to decide: Would I vote for the man who drove Mary Jo Kopechne off the bridge?

Now, as you may or may not know, Chappaquiddick is an island just off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, which is itself an island off the coast of Massachusetts.

And, as you undoubtedly don’t know, my wife and I had our honeymoon on Martha’s Vineyard. And one day I happened to see a book on the shelf of a book store — “The Bridge At Chappaquiddick” by Jack Olsen.

It’s a great book, by the way — really well written and suspenseful. Olsen gives a detailed, dispassionate report of what happened at Chappaquiddick, comparing police reports to Kennedy’s statements and so on.

The essential details are this. Kennedy and Mary Jo were at a party in a cottage on Chappaquiddick. At some point, they left the party and drove to the main roadway on the island. A left turn took them back to the ferry.  A right turn took them down a bumpy road to the beach. In the aftermath, Kennedy said he made a mistake. He wanted to go left — so he could drive Mary Jo back to the ferry that went to Martha’s Vineyard. But, instead, he went right. So instead of driving down the asphalt road to the ferry, he drove down the bumpy road to the bridge, and, well, you know what happened.

After I read that book, curiosity got the best of me. So one day my wife and I took the ferry from Martha’s Vineyard to Chappaquiddick. And we drove over the cottage where Kennedy and Mary Jo had been partying. And we followed their steps, driving down the road to the main roadway.  And we turned right, not left. And instead of driving down a relatively smooth asphalt road, we drove down a bumpy dirt road. And by the time we got to the bridge, we both knew that Kennedy had been lying. There was no way — absolutely no way — he could have mistaken that bumpy road for the asphalt road. And he had gone down the bumpy road cause he intended to have a romantic liaison with Mary Jo down on the beach. And everything he said in the aftermath was just a cover up concocted to conceal his intent.

Having figured all of this out, I got on my high horse and proclaimed that I would never, ever vote for Ted Kennedy no matter who he was running against. Cause he had never been adequately punished for what he did at Chappaquiddick.

I mainly made this proclamation to my good buddy, AJ, who shared my obsession with Chappaquiddick. But for awhile I was also sharing it with just about anybody who would listen, which was a surprisingly large number of people. You’d be amazed at all the people who wanted to know what really happened on that island. Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. Folks like to pretend like they’re above all this shit. But really they want to get down in the muck — just too lazy to read a book. So they say, Benny, tell us what happened….

Anyway here we are, forty years later, and I’m reading the paper about Ted Kennedy’s funeral, and they’re describing the soft sounds of “America the Beautiful” being played in the background as they wheel his casket out of the cathedral and into the rain.  And I’ve got tears in my eyes.

I’m telling myself — stop crying, you big baby. You didn’t even liken the guy. You weren’t ever gonna vote for him — remember?

I figure it’s a sign of age. Getting old and soft.  The young guy who went on that honeymoon to Martha’s Vineyard is long gone….

I turn from the funeral coverage and read a story about his pivotal 1992 senatorial re-election battle against Mitt Romney. And I realize: Forget that no-vote pledge. If I had lived in Massachusetts, and I’d have come to that ballot that read “Kennedy, Democrat” versus “Romney, Republican,” there’s no way — absolutely no way – I’d have punched Republican.  Especially for a Republican, who made millions running a hedge fund that bought up factories and fired the workers.

Guess I’m as big a phony as anyone else. Plant the flag in the ground, stand back all noble and strong, like I’m making my big stand, then move it back an inch when I think nobody’s looking….

But, you know, those Republicans who go on and one about Chappaquiddick, they’re no better. They don’t care about Mary Jo. Never did, never will. They just don’t like the Kennedys.  Probably envious on account of the fact that, unlike the Kennedys, they never got the girls….

Letter From Milo: Hunter/Gatherer

My children love their mother dearly, almost as much as they adore me. Next to me, their mother is the most important person in the world. I mean, what’s not to like about the lovely Mrs. Milo? She’s beautiful, charming, nurturing, a loving mother, in short, everything a child would want in a parent, and a husband in a wife.

There is one thing, however, that my daughters dislike about their mother. Dislike may actually be a poor choice of words. There is one thing Mrs. Milo does that the kids absolutely hate.

They hate when their mother does the grocery shopping. You, see, Mrs. Milo has an odd taste in food, probably instilled in her at an early age by her nutritionist father.

When Mrs. Milo goes grocery shopping, she stocks up on pasta, fish and skinless chicken breasts. Her grocery cart gets loaded with fresh vegetables, ripe fruit, freshly squeezed juices, whole grain breads, assorted soy products, low sodium and low sugar cookies, and other fat-free, low-carb, organically grown, chemical-free foodstuffs, all produced in non-communist countries.

When the children hear that their mother is going grocery shopping, they groan in misery. Their precious little hearts start fluttering and tears well up in their Bambi-like eyes. The way they act you’d think it was the worst thing that ever happened to them, worse even than having their cell phones confiscated or learning that they have to wear braces for another nine years.

“Daddy! Daddy! Mom’s going grocery shopping!”

“So?”

“Can’t you stop her?”

“Why would I want to stop her?”

“She never gets anything good. Can’t you do something? Daddy, please.”

“Now, now, children, your mother has every right to go grocery shopping. Every American has the inalienable right to shop. It says so right in the Constitution. I could be arrested if I tried to stop her.”

The truth is, the kids like it better when I do the grocery shopping. When I go out for groceries, I do it in style. I not only bring home the bacon, I also bring home the sugar, the starch, the grease and that squishy, tasteless petroleum by-product that passes for white bread. I bring home the chips, the cookies, the ice cream, the red meat and the soda.

I am “Da Man” when it comes to shit that’s not good for you.

I truly enjoy grocery shopping. Next to bookstores, taverns and the race track, grocery stores are my favorite places of business. I love pushing a cart down the narrow aisles of my local market. I visit every aisle, grabbing anything that catches my eye.

I especially enjoy the produce section, although I rarely buy the green stuff. The reason I enjoy the produce section is that I get a thrill watching women handle produce, especially cucumbers. Ah, but I digress.

When I come home from a shopping trip, the kids squeal with joy. They go through the shopping bags like they were opening presents on Christmas morning. It does my heart good to see the kids happy. I settle back in an easy chair, pour a glass of wine and congratulate myself on another job well done. After all, I’m the man of the house and, once again, I’ve succeeded in providing food for the family. I am Mr. Elemental. I have hunted and I have gathered. And I have paid for it all with my debit card.

Mrs. Milo, however, is not quite so pleased.

“Jesus, honey, you really brought home a lot of crap this time.”

“It’s all in the eye of the beholder, dear.”

“Couldn’t you have at least tried to get some stuff that’s healthy to eat?”

“Sweetheart, I believe I’ve covered at least two of the basic food groups.”

“Some of the junk you brought home doesn’t fit in any food group. In fact, I doubt it actually qualifies as food.”

“Now, now, dear, let’s not be so quick to point fingers. I did bring you a very nice bottle of Pinot Grigot.”

“You did? That was sweet and thoughtful of you.”

Milo is no fool.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

My good friend, the artist, Michael Realmuto, will soon be posting some of his paintings on this blog site. He is a wonderful painter and his water colors of iconic Chicago scenes are not to be missed. I’ll let you know when his work is posted.

Big Mike: When A Lie Is The Truth

I hung out at the fabled Urbus Orbis coffeehouse from the early 90s until it closed on New Year’s Eve, 1997. It was the center of the Wicker Park – Bucktown avant garde scene back when that neighborhood was packed with artists, anarchists, street hookers and public restroom junkies. Now, of course, the area is home to moms pushing strollers, cute little boutiques and the trendiest restaurants in the city. It’s a shame when a neighborhood goes downhill so dramatically.

Anyway, I met a madhouse full of characters at Urbus Orbis. One — let’s call her Serena — was a 19-year-old chain-smoking couch surfer. She appeared shy at first glance. She wouldn’t even look me in the eye when she was introduced to me. Some months later, Serena had warmed up to me enough to share her story..

She told me she’d been locked in a closet as a nine-year-old by a caretaker uncle who fed her a steady diet of cocaine and only let her out when he wanted to have sex with her. Serena related this matter-of-factly, the way I’d tell you how I became a Cubs fan.

Naturally, I figured it was traumatic for her to reveal this horror to me. I even felt flattered that she’d taken me into her confidence.

Some weeks later, I came into Urbus Orbis on a Wednesday night and found Serena holding court in front of a semicircle of people. She was telling them the closet story along with other shocking accounts of her childhood. Then she fielded questions from them as if she were holding a press conference. The heretofore shy teen suddenly was transformed in my eyes into a confident, beaming young woman. Despite the unspeakable horrors she’d experienced as a little girl, she appeared to enjoy sitting at the center of that semicircle.

The next afternoon, sitting with Sid Feldman, the pride and joy of Skokie, I confided a suspicion.

“I wonder,” I said, “if Serena’s stories are true.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sid said. “They’re her stories. They’ve shaped her.”

“But, if she’s lying….”

“She’s not lying.”

“How do you know?” I demanded. “How can we prove or disprove what she says?”

“Why do we need to?” Sid asked. “Isn’t it enough that she believes them?”

Sid sat back like a buddha who’d just dispensed a couple of koans.

I never did find out if Serena was on the square or not.

Flash forward to this week. I wrote about my next door neighbor, Captain Billy, and his seemingly cavalier attitude about taking his first life in Vietnam. Benny Jay then posted an assertion that something didn’t quite ring true about Captain Billy’s recollections. In fact, Benny Jay even has doubts the man actually fought in Southeast Asia.

I have to admit I’d never entertained the notion that Captain Billy has been fudging about being a soldier before this. He has told me about the dark nights, fetid swamps and steamy jungles of Vietnam. He relates in excruciating detail his run-ins with superior officers and recalcitrant underlings. He boasts of the long line of soldiers in his family. The man also has deep romantic feelings for guns, describing the automatic rifles soldiers carried the way I’ve described my first kiss. He even told me about his auto insurance policy that he got through some veterans organization.

None of that, of course, would stand up as proof in a court of law that the man wore the uniform in Vietnam. But, by and large, we take people at their word. Yet, occasionally, something smells rotten. And if the stink is that of untruth, what does it matter?

It matters, I’m sure, to a guy like Milo, Gary, Indiana’s Greatest Writer, who served in Vietnam. Well, he says he served in Vietnam. How do we believe anybody in this crazy, mixed up world?

It’s a conundrum writers and journalists have had to grapple with since they first started clacking on their keyboards. In my quarter of a century-plus in the biz, I’ve learned only that everybody’s memory is faulty. I’ve also learned that everybody’s story is designed to make the teller look (take your pick) righteous, put-upon, unique, courageous, far-sighted, nearer to god, nearer to the devil and so on. It all depends on the image the teller wishes to plant in your mind.

In that sense, everybody’s a liar. We’re left only with a quibble over the extent of the lie.

My guess is Captain Billy’s lie is that he’s such an emotionally hard man that taking his first life meant no more to him than sneaking packets of sugar out of a restaurant. But, as Richard Feyman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Captain Billy may have told this lie so many times that he now believes it. It’s his story. It has shaped him. Like a Ponzi schemer or a TV evangelist, he’s become so good at it that it is now his truth.

My own story is that I’ve been hamstrung all my life by debilitating depression, panic disorder and agoraphobia. It’s a tidy explanation for why I haven’t won the Pulitzer Prize yet or don’t live in a Malibu beach home. Perhaps I’ve given short shrift to some hitherto unacknowledged laziness or even — horrors! — lack of talent.

But I believe my own story. As did Serena hers. And Captain Billy his. Even if the young Captain Billy suffered mightily the first time he killed a man, I suspect he wouldn’t bat an eye if he had to do it again.

Randolph Street: Highway 61–The Great River Road

Church–Luxora Arkansas

Cashier–Arcola, Mississippi

Holsteins–Barnum, Mnnesota

FDIC–Luxora, Arkansas

Pipe–Hannibal, Missouri

Trace–Port Gibson, Mississippi

This is a personal look at mid-America that I shot between 1976 and 1985.  These were taken along the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 that roughly follows the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then juts northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.  All photographs © Jon Randolph.

Benny Jay: Rewriting Our Lives

In the morning, before my first cup of coffee, I read Big Mike’s fascinating blog bit about Captain Billy, his loony right-wing neighbor, a Vietnam Vet who “gets a dreamy look in his eyes when he recounts his stint.”

It’s a story well told — has me laughing out loud, especially the part where Big Mike’s all soaped up and in the shower.

I go on with my day. Get to that coffee. Read the paper. Make some calls. But the story’s sticks with me — some thing’s not right.

I go back and read it again, concentrating on the key paragraph where Captain Billy recalls using his sidearm to kill a man with one shot: “One of those little gooks was running the brush just outside our perimeter….I had great night vision. Man, when I as young, I could see a ladybug on a tree 20 yards away. This little bastard thought he was putting one over on us. He was just playing with us, trying to see how close he could come….He ducked down behind some foliage and I pulled out my sidearm and pointer right where I thought he’d pop up. Sure enough, up he pops. Bang. Dead.”

As soon as I finish, I realize what’s wrong. I don’t believe the guy. I mean, I believe he told Big Mike that story.  But I don’t think the story he told is true. I don’t think he killed a man with his sidearm. I’m not even sure he was in Vietnam at all.

Keep in mind, I’ve never met Captain Billy. It’s just that none of the people I know who served in combat — be it in World War II, Korea or Vietnam — ever pound their chests about the people they’ve killed. It’s just not something they’re proud of.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point where whenever I hear a man boast about the people he’s killed in war, the more I believe he never served.

But, out of curiosity, I call Milo, who did a couple of years with the Army in Vietnam, to ask  what he thinks of Captain Billy’s tale.

Milo answers with a tale of his own: “I was sitting in a bar on Lincoln Avenue a few years back and at the other end of the bar, this fast-talking guy is telling his drinking buddy about this time he was out with his platoon in Vietnam and a tiger jumped out of the bushes and dragged one of the Marines away.”

And?

“Well, Benny, right there and then I thought to myself that this guy probably never was in Vietnam, or if he was the thing with the tiger never happened.”

Why?

“Think about it.  In a platoon you can have anywhere from thirty to forty guys. And every single one of them is armed with an automatic rifle that fires up to six-hundred rounds a minute. So you got thirty to forty guys with rifles, there’s no way that tiger gets out of there alive. They’ll riddle that fucker with hundreds of bullets in a matter of seconds.  When you think about, why would a tiger fuck with a soldier in the first place — what’s in it for the tiger? He just wants to be left alone. Besides Marines don’t taste good — now if it was a G.I….”

Did you say anything to the guy in the bar — you know, call him out?

“Aw, hell, no — what, I want to start a fight?”

So back to Captain Billy — what do you think about his story?

“Well, he kind of lost me when he talking about shooting a man with a pistol. You have to realize the regular military-issued sidearm is a .45 automatic, one of the most inaccurate weapons ever made. In training, even the best marksmen can only hit a target five times out of ten from twenty yards. Now, for Captain Billy to shoot a crouching Vietnamese in the middle of the night from twenty-to-forty yards away — cause, let’s face it, the Vietnamese are not going to be crouching three-feet away — well, let’s just say it sounds implausible. As a matter of fact, it sounds like an outright lie.”

But why would anyone lie about what they did in the war?

“Benny, why do guys lie about all the pussy they get? Maybe he wanted to be in Vietnam. I think for some guys it’s the old Hemingway thing. Go to war, and prove yourself. You know, Hemingway ruined a lot of writers with that shit. The thing about it is that when my army buddies sit around it’s not the war stories we tell but the funny stuff — remember the time we got fucked-up and went to the whore house? That kind of thing.

“Speaking of which,  did I ever tell you that I’m  a pussy magnet on account of my surgically enhanced twenty-inch dick?”

Ugh, not today you haven’t — but I think I might have read all about it sometime ago….

Big Mike: The Naked Truth

Now that The Loved One and I will be lamming out of Luigiville within a month, I’m starting to get a little sentimental about the whole thing. Not to get mawkish — after all, we’ve only been out here a little more than two years — but there are one or two things I’ll miss.

Believe it or not, one of them is Captain Billy, my next door neighbor whose worldview was set in concrete during his tour of duty in Vietnam. I’ve written about Captain Billy here before. He’s really a work of art. Among the first things he ever said to me was that our elected officials would never pay any attention to us until the day some courageous patriot sneaks up behind one of them as they come out of their home in the morning and puts a bullet in their brain.

I don’t have any hair on the top of my head but my follicles snapped to attention.

Whereas a lot of Vietnam vets seem to look back on their time in-country as something a tad less enjoyable than a Sunday picnic, Captain Billy gets a dreamy look in his eye when he recounts his stint.

“One of those little gooks was running in the brush just outside our perimeter,” he recalled one night, early on, as we sat on my deck and drank beer. “I had great night vision. Man, when I was young, I could see a ladybug on that tree 20 yards away. This little bastard thought he was putting one over on us. He was just playing with us, trying to see how close he could come. Sometimes I think the fuckers were counting coup like the plains Indians. I know he saw me. He ducked down behind some foliage and I pulled out my sidearm and pointed right where I thought he’d pop up again. Sure enough, up he pops. Bang. Dead.

“Man, those little fuckers sure could fight. They had no fear.”

At this point, my hands were trembling and I was glancing longingly at the back door, just waiting for the first opportunity to dash inside and ask The Loved One to read me a bedtime story.

Earlier this year, I spoke with a Vietnam vet who told me that his first kill profoundly affected him emotionally and even physically. The next time I saw Captain Billy, I told him about what this guy said. Then I asked him what he felt after his first kill.

“Not a fuckin’ thing,” Captain Billy replied, matter-of-factly. I believe him.

Captain Billy took a liking to me. I have no idea why. Our politics are as different as two men’s can be. As the 2008 campaign started heating up, he told me that Lou Dobbs would make a great president now that Pat Buchanan wasn’t in the mood to run anymore.

We’ve only ever had one blow-up over politics. That was one Tuesday night at a local Mexican restaurant chain that serves food I’d swear comes from a Chef Boyardee can. Captain Billy was downing cheap beers that night. One beer loosens his already uninhibited tongue — five of them turns him into a mynah bird. He was on his sixth when he began exalting Sheriff Joe Arpaio of New Mexico’s Maricopa County. To Joe Arpaio, the Bill of Rights is nothing more than fag poetry. It took Ted the Butcher – all 6’6” and 280 pounds of him — to separate the two of us. Our faces were crimson and our breath hot.

Maybe that’s why Captain Billy liked me; he knew I wouldn’t take any of his shit. Still, I learned after that night to steer the conversation away from controversy, especially when Captain Billy was downing beers.

All that said, Captain Billy was a good neighbor. He always wanted to help me do things around the yard. After the tail end of Hurricane Ike blew through L-ville last September, he insisted on helping me cut up downed trees in my backyard, using only a bucksaw. That’s just one example of his neighborliness.

Here’s another. One hot afternoon last summer, I was in the basement taking my second or third shower of the day. It wasn’t particularly humid that day so I’d shut off the air conditioning and had thrown open the doors and windows.

So, there I was, naked as a jaybird and soaped up from head to toe. Suddenly, I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps upstairs. Boom, boom, boom — from one end of the house to the other. I knew it wasn’t The Loved One; I’d just spoken to her on the phone before jumping in the shower.

Oh shit! I strategized for a quick minute. My testicles were shrinking to the size of petite green peas. Then I figured I might turn the scare thing around on whoever’d invaded my house. With that, I bounded out of the shower, ran upstairs — bare, sudsy and obviously crazed — and when I got to the top step I shouted with all my might, “Who the fuck is there?”

“Hey, Mike, it’s me,” came Captain Billy’s calm, firm, officer’s voice from near the bedrooms.

“Huh? What the…?”

“No, don’t worry. The kid next door rang your doorbell and got worried when there was no answer. The doors were wide open and the radio was on in the kitchen. He thought something was wrong. I heard him telling his mother about it. I figured I’d make sure.”

“BILLY!” I shrieked. “Next goddamned time, try the phone!”

“Yeah, I know. But I’d feel like shit if it turned out you were layin’ there for three days and needed help. I don’t wanna see that happen to you.”

I apologized to him later for screaming at him. Sure he’s a nut and has the sensibilities of a Cossack, but he was a good neighbor.

Benny Jay: Conversation Crasher

It’s a rainy day in northern Michigan, and instead of lounging on the beach, I’m sitting on the porch of the Inn, talking to Jennie, my cousin Robert’s girlfriend.

She’s giving me a blow-by-blow description of “The Reader,” the movie about a former concentration camp guard, played by Kate Winslet, who has an affair with a sex-starved 15-year-old.

I thought about seeing it, but I didn’t cause I heard it was sad. And I have this thing about sad movies — I’m too scared to watch them.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know about them.  So what I do is I find someone who’s seen the movie and then I get them to tell me everything that happens. That way I find out what happens without feeling sad. Am I genius or what? By the way, it works really well with scary movies too.

So, anyway, Jennie’s doing a great job, giving me all the details, scene-by-scene — frontal nudity included. She’s heading for the climax — no pun intended — when I heard a loud voice barking out my name: “Benny!”

I turn to look — it’s Double D.

Noooo!

Nothing against Double D.  So, okay, he’s this right-wing lawyer who hates Gays and has a notorious reputation for crashing conversations. But aside from that he’s really not a bad guy.

The thing is he’s dragging over some guy to meet me. “I’ve been meaning to introduce you two,” he says.

Great. The guy smiles at me and I smile at him.  I can see see he doesn’t want to meet me anymore than I want to meet him. But, really, what choice do we have? I mean, what are you supposed to do in this situation?  On the one hand, you want to be polite. On the other hand, why should you have to be polite?  I know it’s not the end of the world, but he is crashing my conversation.

Oh, what to do — where’s Dear Abby when you need her?

The thing is we’ve been going to this same Inn for the last two decades which means once a year in August we see the same people only they’re a year older. Not that I know all of them. Mostly, I might nod hello as we pass on the beach. In this case, I faintly remember seeing this guy eating with his family on the other side of the dining room.

“You’re from Chicago?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

“Me too,” I say.

That pretty much covers what we have to say to one another.

Meanwhile, Double D is looking on like a proud papa. I’m wondering: Does he  secretly enjoying our discomfort?

As for Jennie, she’s no dope. She sneaks away to the other side of the porch where my wife and a few other women are having a great conversation. Pretty soon the other guy sneaks away too. That leaves me with Double D, who’s telling me about his property tax appeal. I’m shooting dirty looks at Jennie, who’s having the time of her life with the girls on the other side of the porch.

Fast forward three hours. I’m walking through the inn and I see Jennie. She’s sitting on the sofa outside her room, eating a peach. I beg her to finish the story about the movie.

And just as she’s starting in, I hear: “Hey, Benny!”

I know who it is without looking.

“What are you talking about?” asks Double D.

“The Reader,” I say.

“Excuse me,” he says.

Did I tell you he was a little hard of hearing?

“The movie — `The Reader’,” I say.

Turns out he saw it. And he cuts off Jennie to tell me what he thought about it. Then my cousin starts in. And soon the two of them are barking and braying, trying to talk over each other, until it’s nearly impossible to figure out what any one’s saying.

Oh, well. I guess I can always rent the video and fast forward through the sad parts….