KENNEDY
When Ted realized my involvement in the gay organization at the University, he opened my eyes to what I was getting into.
“What do you think you’re doing in an organization that is a child of the Gay Liberation Front? Don’t you know that Hoover and the FBI are investigating, at Nixon’s request, all the homosexuals who are there and that they have infiltrated agents? I’m telling you once: I won’t get you out of jail again. If they catch you again and throw you into the Rio Grande, I won’t lift a finger.”
“What did you do to get them to let me go?”
“I said you were the son of my employee Conchita.”
“So, I’m Chakiris and Conchita’s son? No, being in the closet like you is wonderful. You know how to lie as if it were nothing.”
“Nixon is paranoid. He believes in a conspiracy of homosexuals, Jews, blacks, and communists against his government. They must already have your file and all your information. You must get out immediately, and if you don’t, we can’t see each other again. All I need is for them to say that I’m with an underage, gay, Latino, and to make matters worse, Jewish shmuck.
Don’t you remember that when the scandal of Summer Welles’ homosexuality came out in Mississippi, they 124
were about to forgive him until they realized that he liked giving oral sex to black men? It was one thing to suck a white man in the South, but a black man, that was unbearable. And you are half black, Jewish, homosexual, and Latino. They’re going to hang me!”
Ted gave me a good reason. He explained that Washington was not like other American cities like Boston, Atlanta, or Philadelphia, which had aristocracies that were impossible to enter. In the capital, anyone could rise, either through cunning or beauty.
In that sense, diplomacy and homosexuality were similar. “You’re handsome,” he said, “and in Washington, that’s enough to go wherever you want. But remember that the FBI is here looking to ruin your life.”
I had to learn that when you marry such a beautiful man, you can’t do anything to tie him down. They told Jackie Kennedy the same thing: “Don’t expect him to be faithful, it’s not part of what they do in that family.
If you marry him, accept that he will sleep with half the world.” Jackie would acknowledge that she knew what she was getting into and what she would suffer because of it.
Love is a Jewish Golem: a spirit that accompanies and protects you while at the same time making your life bitter. Sexologists say that there is a six-month period in which lovers cannot stop loving each other, and they call it limerence. Then, boring life begins, leading each one to fantasize about others. However, I did not experience this. On the contrary, every time I 125
was with this man, I felt that he had me under his control and that I liked him more.
There was no Internet, cell phones, or social networks, thank God. But when you were with someone famous, the newspapers reported every step they took. So, it was easy for me to read the list of advisors in his campaigns, in his opening of a road or a nursing home. I read it and realized that there was one or two who shouldn’t be there, and if they were, it was because they were sleeping with Ted.
“Who the hell invited this freeloader, dyed hair, and gayer than the hens in your delegation?”
“My dear jealous Polish Hispanic Jew, stop checking my commitments, and you’ll live more peacefully.”
“Ted, you’re just as gay as all the Ticos. Southerners do the same thing; the only difference is that they feel guilty, like now. I must endure not being able to see you in public, I can’t go to the movies with you, much less to a bar or a restaurant, and this bastard, as your
‘advisor,’ can be seen with you in the eyes of the world.”
“But it’s just a fling. Unlike the Ticos, Southerners only love one man. I told you I wouldn’t be faithful.
Why don’t you get used to it? Jackie Kennedy had to put up with Marilyn Monroe, and you can’t stand a damn advisor.”
“I can’t stand it. I want a husband, a house, a dog, and a cat, and I don’t want to hide anymore. Don’t you understand that with you, I’m still in the closet?
That this life in Washington is even worse for us than 126
a prison? Why don’t we go to New York, resign from representing that state of rednecks, and run in a more civilized one that is so small that you have nothing to do? Become a senator from Delaware for God’s sake!
It’s so boring there that nothing happens. And for the love of God, stop voting for anything that is conservative! What do you care if a woman wants to have an abortion or if a black person wants to be paid the same as a white person? Your Southern politics are shit, and that’s why you’re so backward. The only good thing about you is that you like Jews.”
“I like that you don’t get involved in my politics, and I don’t get involved in yours. Don’t think I don’t know about your ties to that bunch of shitty hippies from the University of Maryland and that you’re involved in some kind of gay conspiracy. They haven’t thrown you out of this country because Papa Ted is here to protect you and he doesn’t plan on sending you to that Central American shithole of monkeys and cockatoos.
For a short time, I stopped bringing him hamburgers. After all, David knew what was happening in the Capitol. Who told him? Well, none other than Satan himself from Washington: Edgar Hoover.
The man who spied on everyone and who met with David’s housemate at his Congress for World Peace meetings had nothing better to do than to keep an eye on Ted and me.
“Do you know, Sandy (David’s housemate), that this senator is homosexual and that he’s involved with 127
David’s boyfriend? I’m not going to do anything about it because Ted always votes with us. But it’s better if you let David know. We don’t want another scandal, right?”
There I was, the son of a poor Polish man who fled from Poland on the antennas of this wretch who Sandy himself had told me was probably behind Kennedy’s assassination.
“Sandy, are you sure about what you’re saying? Did Hoover order the hit?”
“I heard it from his own mouth. He hated them to death, and they reciprocated. Hoover and his CIA cronies, the mafia, and the right-wing Cubans wanted to kill Bobby, but they went for the head of the snake, as they referred to JFK. And if I were you, I’d be very careful because you’re hearing more than you should.”