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….