The Men We Became Read online

  Our little cube-shaped Sony Dream Machine alarm went off an hour later and I got up to go to practice. Oddly, John was sitting silently on the couch. I assumed he was still pouting and had sat there the whole time in an effort to make me feel bad about not lending him the car. I ignored him.

  As I was fishing around in my top dresser drawer for the car keys, John spoke. He said softly, “I crashed it.”

  Without turning around, I responded, “No, you didn’t.”

  He spoke again, louder now, and unable to keep the laughter out of his voice: “I can’t change this.… I crashed it.”

  And then, as if delivering the good news, he added, “I don’t think it’s totaled, though.”

  At which point I turned around and made the eight-foot leap across the room to pound him. But I had to hurry, since I had a two-mile run through the freezing rain ahead of me. I arrived in time to get yelled at by the coach and do a few extra laps on John’s account.

  The car spent four months in downtown Providence, a town with extraordinary family values, as in La Cosa Nostra. The mechanic milked the insurance company for two thousand dollars in storage alone. They’d still be “working” on it if I hadn’t instituted a weekly policy of telephoning the garage, inquiring politely as to the status of my car, and then raging uncontrollably into the phone. Twice the proprietor insisted that the car was done and I could come pick it up. Ten minutes later I’d be down there and the same guy would tell me, with a perfectly straight face, that the car was not ready.

  The GLC finally made it back about the end of the calendar year. I’d had it for just a few weeks when John requisitioned it for a motorcade honoring the leaders of Sierra Leone. Maurice Tempelsman, Mrs. Onassis’s longtime companion and the head of a diamond concern, was entertaining President Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone, known as the Pa, by giving him a tour of scenic Newport, Rhode Island. There weren’t enough official vehicles available for the trip from the Providence airport to Newport. John, with my permission this time, gave the car to a cabinet minister so he could be driven around Rhode Island by his bodyguards. The minister informed John at the end of the weekend that he had learned a lot about American culture—by way of Big Mac boxes, Big Gulp cups, six-pack wraps, and a few textbooks—from my car.

  *

  One of Phi Psi’s attractions was its barroom. With a full complement of taps and refrigeration, the horseshoe-shaped bar usually had visitors seven days a week. A historical mural of the frat’s most notorious members covered the walls, lending a comforting sense of continuity. For us sophomores, the thrill of drinking unlimited beer hadn’t yet worn off and we gathered in the bar each night until the wee hours. One of our favorite activities was to hold the pinball machine up in the air—it took four of us—so that the player working the buttons could score a new record. We were extremely happy down there, bound to one another by simple camaraderie and the spirit of Augustus Busch.

  This same bar was the setting for our fraternity initiation. Although Phi Psi was no longer a chapter of the national organization, it still retained the rituals of a frat house. Everyone who had pledged the year before had behaved well enough to survive the early-fall vetting period. We were ready for initiation night, which fell on a Tuesday. The evening began with the upperclassmen locking us into the bar along with a full keg of beer, half a dozen bottles of cheap tequila, and two bongs. The bongs were for the ounce of weed that was pinned to the bulletin board. We were instructed to finish everything and prepare for the worst. It took about an hour. John then went to man the barricades against the upperclassmen, who were massing outside, eager to take us to our fate.

  Phi Psi’s de facto spokesman, known to all as the Rabbi, finally made his way in and announced that it was time. Tommy Haslett was up first, he told us. Tommy and John promptly shed a thousand years of collective fine breeding and jumped him, neutralizing the unfortunate envoy and dragging him to the back of the bar. The Rabbi negotiated his release smoothly, as spokesmen do, and was set free. Two larger men then came in for Tom and ended up captive at the back of the bar as well. Nothing happened for about ten minutes. We thought they’d given up when Steve Venditti, a human redwood, came through the door. And Tom went out, in part because of Steve’s thigh size but also because we’d started to scare ourselves in there. One by one, we were led from the bar to what turned out to be an entirely reasonable hazing. We were paddled, made to eat a goldfish, and commanded to pick up an olive with our butt cheeks. Amazingly, none of us had a hangover the next day, the alcohol having burned off in a blaze of adrenaline and male bonding.

  *

  John invited several of his friends to his mother’s annual Christmas party in New York that year. I arrived in a yellow cab and, to my surprise, found a gauntlet of photographers flanking the awning of 1040. Even more surprising, they were taking pictures of me. I felt sort of out of body—silly and offended and cool, all at the same time. Silly because I wasn’t famous and there was no reason to photograph me. Offended because I hadn’t given anyone permission to take my picture. And cool because the flashbulbs and the shouting (“Over here! Can you look this way? Merry Christmas! Are you a friend of John’s or Caroline’s?”) sent a surge of adrenaline through me. Upon reaching the newly appreciated privacy of the lobby, I asked the doorman, “Why’d they take a picture of me?”

  The gentleman responded with a wisdom gained from years of observation: “Hey, ya never know.”

  The party was a glamorous affair, with lots of authors and artists among the guests. I recall discussing aircraft carriers with Tom Wolfe (I had read Mauve Gloves and Madmen, in which he called them “heaving skillets”), listening to George Plimpton (I tried to talk), and laughing with Caroline’s costume-designer friend, William Ivey Long. Mrs. Onassis had the aura of a movie star but a warm and perpetually curious air about her, so the party was filled with talented, interesting people. It was fun and exhilarating and much livelier than I’d expected. Although I rarely worried about my rough edges in social situations, I remember mentally thanking my mother that night for whatever etiquette she’d taught me. I also recall checking my hair every nine minutes or so.

  After the party ended, John and I went out to Tramps, a jazz bar downtown. There I had my second encounter with the paparazzi. John usually kept his cool in front of the lens, but on this night he was a little spooked. Or maybe being chased by a shouting mob didn’t jibe with his sense of Christmas cheer. I didn’t know what was happening at first. I’d walked ahead to get the car while John chatted by the door with some people he knew. All of a sudden he came running up to the car, yelling, “Littell, Littell, let’s go! They’re coming!” Like I was his old Secret Service bodyguard or something.

  I’ve never really liked being called by my last name, either, so instead of flooring it, I crossed my arms and stated, “My name is Rob and I am fine.”

  John started to laugh. I did, too, a second later. This would become a long-standing joke between us. Whenever John caught me whining, he’d say, “Hey, ‘My Name Is Rob and I Am Fine,’ is everything okay?” Which usually quieted me down.

  Outside of Tramps, the photographers were closing in and we pulled away from the curb in a peal of tires and laughter just as the flashes started to pop. John breathed out, “They sure are a pain in the arse sometimes.” (John rarely swore, even when it sounded funny not to.)

  I snorted that sometimes was the key word. He knew what I meant and nodded his head. John was aware of his status as America’s boy king. He enjoyed the benefits and had adapted to the cost. His desirability to the tabloids was tied to tragedy, of course, but also to many good things: his fine looks, his charm, his wealth, and his fascinating family. I use a tax analogy with regard to John’s sense of obligation: If you have to write a huge check to the U.S. Treasury, it’s because you made an enormous amount of money that year. It’s no fun to write the check, but it’s a lot better than not having made a penny. Or as Larry Ellison says about being a mega-billionaire: “
I highly recommend it.”

  John knew all this, though he had mixed feelings about the paparazzi. He understood that the photographers were just doing their job, but he didn’t enjoy being staked out. Every once in a while, he’d lose patience with all the bushes that sprouted feet and camera lenses—say, when we were tossing around a football in the park—and enlist my help. I’d walk up to the offending shrub and say something like “Are you trying to take a picture of him? Just come on out and do it, then. Take your picture of the hunk and then do me a favor, will ya? Hit the road.”

  The photographer would, without exception, mutter, “Sorry,” and start walking the other way, camera in the bag.

  Overall, they were pretty gentle with him, and he was equally magnanimous with them. The truth is that the press was one of the few constants in John’s life. The media had essentially adopted him when he was three, the solemn child saluting his dad’s funeral caisson. The attention of the press was like having a friendly dog in the neighborhood. He knew the dog well, knew how to stroke it and make it happy. In return, the dog lavished him with attention and affection. Sure, the papers ran headlines like THE HUNK FLUNKS and pictures of lovers’ quarrels, but it was almost always good-natured. When he started George, he actually joined their ranks. I’d be willing to bet that if I hadn’t been looking that night at Tramps, John would have turned around in his seat and good-naturedly offered them his better side.

  *

  Back at Brown for second semester, we woke one Sunday to an unseasonably warm, sunny February day. The entire campus came alive, the long winter’s gloom momentarily displaced by a rush of spring energy. John and I added to the celebratory mood by placing his stereo speakers out our windows, which faced a church across the street. We cranked the volume to about 9.85, which on John’s stereo meant that we were loosening the old cobblestones under the asphalt. The first B-52’s album was on the turntable when John Hare came by and asked if we wanted to go to lunch. We did, and walked the twenty yards to the Ratty, where I ate my daily allotment of Premium crackers and white rice—my diet for the year—and John wolfed down his usual four helpings of everything. We were there about half an hour. As we headed back down the dining-hall steps, we heard a terrible, weird sound, possibly coming from our room. It was. The album we’d been playing had a scratch, right at the end of “Rock Lobster.” We ran up the stairs to fix it. Two men in dark morning suits were pounding hard on our door. John stepped forward and asked what they wanted. The larger guy was too angry to articulate actual words. He spit out some unintelligible syllables. The smaller fellow stepped in, speaking loudly over the din. I heard just a few key words: “Assholes … playing party music … it’s my grandmother’s funeral.”

  John and I froze. Grandmother? Funeral? 9.85? Holy shit, we were assholes! John ever so smoothly stated that he had a key to this room, implying that he was not actually its resident but a hall monitor of sorts. He opened the door and, after letting me slip in, blocked the way. He told the gentlemen, in almost military fashion, “This problem will be addressed immediately. And I’ll personally make sure it doesn’t happen again. Is there anything more I can do than offer our deepest apology?”

  What could they say? John continued, suggesting that he go out to apologize to whoever else might appreciate it. The two men, who were livid a minute before, now backed out of our alcove and down the stairs, actually apologizing for their intrusion. It wasn’t that they recognized John; they’d just been treated the right way. He could be smooth. We laughed nervously for a few seconds, but we felt bad.

  John was deeply immersed in the theater arts program at Brown by then. Most kids who grow up in famous families understand the difference between private self and public persona before they learn to read. So it was only logical that John would love the stage, a place where you can assume another identity completely. He was good, despite the enormous task of making his audience forget they were watching John Kennedy Jr. I’ve heard people say that John turned away from acting because his mother disapproved. It’s true that he didn’t seriously pursue acting after college, but that’s true for lots of people. The only thing his mother ever said to me about the subject was that she loved watching him act. It was on the porch at Phi Psi, that day when she wouldn’t venture near the Smell. She told me that John’s acting “brings me the most joy.” Which is hardly a reprimand.

  Soon enough, springtime arrived in earnest, and just as the flowers began to peek from their beds, the loonies began to come out of the woodwork. We’d actually received hints as to what was coming, though we didn’t put it all together. Twice that winter John had gotten elaborate collages in the mail, carefully constructed works filled with pictures of a cute-looking strawberry-blond woman going about her life. There were pictures of her with her parents, at the beach, driving her car, etc. Strangely, the collages also had cut-out pictures of John glued onto them. He had, by virtue of scissors and glue, been hanging out with this woman her whole life. I recall thinking they were kind of sweet.

  That was, until the sender blew into our room one lovely Wednesday afternoon near the end of the school year. She had a pink suitcase with her and a stack of collages. John wasn’t around just then, but she didn’t seem threatening, so I sat down on the couch with her. I listened, silent and shocked, as she went over each doctored picture of her and John, explaining the situation and the good times they’d had together. I’d managed to move several inches away when John came through the door. Jumping up, I introduced them. John looked at me as if I were the loon and we stepped outside our door, politely telling the waif we’d be right back. John asked, “Who the hell is that?”

  I replied that I was not in charge of his fan club. But in fact we were both a little dismayed. We agreed that he’d get campus security while I stayed with our new friend, Miss Crazy. A long fifteen minutes later the security guards arrived and politely guided her out of the room and on her way home. Or so we thought. They’d actually taken her down to the local Bonanza bus station. It took her and her gear about four hours to get back to our room. We weren’t there, but since we never locked our door, she had no problem getting back in. I returned from lacrosse practice about six o’clock and ran upstairs to get my ID for dinner. I knew something was up when I stumbled over my clothes, which were neatly stacked in piles on the landing. It turned out that our visitor had removed all my possessions from the room and rearranged them on the frat stairs. Entering the room, I asked the young lady, who by now had showered and was in her little-girl pajamas, what she was doing. She said, while looking at me as if I were crazy—the second time I’d received that look that day—that she was John’s roommate now. I backed out of the room in fear, retreating to the TV lounge to await John’s return. He arrived shortly and we called security again. They came back, apologized, and retrieved her, but not before making her put my stuff back. Security assured us we wouldn’t see her again. Until the next morning, it turned out. We’d locked our door that night, thankfully, so she wasn’t able to barge right in. Instead, she pounded on the door for a good five minutes just after dawn. We hid under our covers, hoping she’d just go away. Instead, she went downstairs to the TV room, where she bided her time watching television with a few curious night owls.

  This time, the security guards threw their hands up and told us they were going to take our guest to the police. We probably should have let them do so, but John was upset at the thought of this poor, confused person getting hauled away by the black-booted gendarmes who patrolled Providence at the time. After some discussion, we asked the guards to leave her to us, which they did.

  We in turn called John Wentworth. Wenty was a friend of John’s and an enigmatic artist who’d just completed an art project downtown involving fifty live rats. Perhaps there was a fit. At any rate, we figured he’d know how to handle the situation. John got him on the phone and explained what was up. Wenty came right over. Wenty, an attractive and charming guy, and the young woman got along immediately. He
suggested they get some lunch. Over lunch, he told her he was leaving later in the day to drive to Maine. That must have sounded good to her, because the two of them piled into his old-school VW Bug that afternoon and headed for Camden, Maine, where she stayed when Wenty returned to school. She probably owns an art gallery up there now, specializing in collage.

  Did we do the right thing? I don’t know. Maybe we should have let the police take her. We were nineteen and new to dealing with stalkers, unsure where our responsibilities began or ended. We didn’t talk about it much afterward, either. There wasn’t much to say.

  Another weird incident happened that year, one that reminded me that celebrity has a creepy side. One evening Frannie and her roommate, Adrienne Homet (whose mother, by coincidence, worked for Ted Kennedy in Washington, D.C.), came by to visit. John wasn’t around. The three of us were sitting there, talking and listening to music, when the phone rang. Adrienne was closest to it, so I motioned for her to pick it up. I assumed it was the friendly local professor checking in on John. Adrienne was on the phone for a while, and Frannie and I went back to talking. All of a sudden Adrienne slammed down the phone and started to cry. With the color draining from her face, she said, “Teddy’s been shot. The senator’s been shot.”

  We were shocked. But—and this is awful—it seemed entirely plausible. Frannie asked, “Who was on the phone?” Before Adrienne could answer, John came through the door with a bag of Portuguese rolls for us to munch on. Adrienne, through her tears, haltingly told John what she’d heard on the phone. “John, Teddy’s been shot.”

  John was remarkably calm. He put the bag down and asked Adrienne, “Who did you talk to?”

  “It was Joe,” she answered, meaning Joe Kennedy, one of John’s cousins. “He said it was an emergency, that something had happened to Teddy and I should find you. I said my mother worked for the senator and that if anything had happened to him, I wanted to know.” She started crying again.