At one point, not long ago, I went to the desperate length of confessing to the murder myself. We were finishing breakfast in a patio restaurant on a bright sunday morning in boulder. It was a stylish place near the campus, where decent people could meet after pretending they had us come from church and get fashionably drunk on mimosas and white wine. The tables were separated by ferns and potted palms. Bright orange impatiens flowers drooped from hanging urns.
Even I can't explain why I said what I did. I had been up all night with my old friend Allen Ginsberg, the poet, and we had both slid into the abyss of whiskey madness and full-bore substance abuse. It was wonderful, but it left me a little giddy by the time noon rolled around.
"Son," I said, "I'm sorry to ruin your breakfast, but I think the time has finally come to tell you the truth about who killed John Kennedy."
He nodded but said nothing. I tried to keep my voice low, but emotion made it difficult.
"It was me," I said. "I am the one who shot Jack Kennedy."
"What?" he said, glancing quickly over his shoulder to see if others were listening. Which they were. The mention of Kennedy's name will always turn a few heads, anywhere in the world--and god only knows what a tenured Professor of American Political History might feel upon hearing some grizzled thug in a fern bar confess to his son that he was the one who murdered John F. Kennedy. It is one of those that will not fall on deaf ears.
My son leaned forward and stared into my eyes as I explained the raw details and my reasons for killing the President in cold blood, many years ago. I spoke about ballistics and treachery and my "secret work for the government" in Brazil, when he thought I was in the Peace Corps in the sixties.
"I gave up killing about he time you were born,"I said. "But I could never tell you about it, until now."
He nodded solemnly for a moment, then laughed at me and called for some tea. "Don't worry, Dad," he said.
"Good boy," I said. "Now we can finally be honest with each other. I feel naked and clean for the first time in 30 years."
"Not me," he said. "Now I'll have to turn you in."
"What?" I shouted. "You treacherous little bastard!" Many heads had turned to stare at us. It was a weird moment for them. The man who killed Kennedy had just confessed publicly to his son, and now they were cursing each other. Ye Gods, what's next?
What indeed? How warped can it be for a child born into the sixties to finally be told that his father was the hired shootist who killed Kennedy? Do you call 911? Call a priest? Or act like a cockroach and say nothing?


-HST