BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 50. Should Rudy or Sarah tell their twin sons about their JFK lineage? What are political ramifications?

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CHAPTER FIFTY

OCTOBER 10, 2005

For years, Rudy and Sarah had discussed whether or not to tell the twins about their Kennedy bloodline. Their decision had always come down on the negative side because, for one thing, Kennedy had ended up dead. For another, it could cause them emotional problems, by tampering with their identities as sons of a Black man. So much of Jackson and John’s personal reality revolved around Black causes: to suddenly re-cast them as descendants of White Irish Catholic aristocracy seemed the cruelest of jokes.

What was it about secrets that made a person want to shout them from the rooftops, Rudy wondered? Secrets, especially big ones, drove a person to want to tell. Obviously he had gone completely out of control at Coca-Cola when he couldn’t stop blabbing to the guys about Sarah and Jack Kennedy. Back then he couldn’t help ramming the story down everyone’s throat. Rudy thought back to Sal, and how, even though he had helped the guy get settled, he’d been stabbed in the back. The memory still stung. But Rudy had to admit he’d brought it on himself. He had been crazed by the compulsion to tell, had mercilessly stalked the poor kid, needing to purge himself of the secret that was eating him up.

Did everybody feel that way about privileged information? How about the guys he had served with in Vietnam? Friends who had lived on a diet of assassination and self-destruction, venturing nightly into the rice fields, infiltrating villages, sneaking up on VC and cutting their throats, burning villages full of women and children. Killing babies. Rahar. What about his secrets? Who could he tell? Frank and Shag were dead, so their secrets were safe. Frisky, the old man, might have survived. Who would he tell? His wife back in Des Moines, Iowa? Who had Ruffy told? Anyone? Who could Rahar tell? A vision of the dead baby flashed in Rudy’s head. Had he actually killed that baby or was it already dead when he entered the hut? It hardly mattered. He had been an assassin. How many people had he killed? Hundreds. For flag and country. Was there really any difference between him and people on Death Row?

If the Kennedy secret was revealed, it would change everything about the twins’ lives, and could very possibly destroy them and their entire families. Rudy and Sarah imagined the scandal. After the initial shock and dismay there would be insults and death threats. One of the most honored and revered Presidents of the United States, John Fitzger- ald Kennedy, a man who died in the service of his country, with airports and schools named after him (he’s on the half-dollar coin, for God’s sake!), begat two illegitimate sons. Black bastard twins! That was more than Americans were ready to hear, even in 2005.

At first, the Little family would be called liars. Then, after DNA testing proved that Jackson and his brother were indeed fathered by JFK, there would be a severe backlash from the Democratic Party itself. Its leaders would scurry around trying to make apologies, desperately back-pedaling as other examples of wrong-doings in the Kennedy White House came to light. Republican-owned newspapers and magazines would delight in showcasing the Little twins as examples of the unholiness of Democrats, spin the facts for their own political gain. Subliminal messaging would be used to wage a war of words before the next election. Democrats = sinners. Republicans = saints. Desecrating Democrats. Righteous Republicans. Democrats and Little twins = fornication. Republicans and the Bush brothers = high moral standards. Vote Republican. Reject Satan. The ‘moral majority’ would bury Jackson and John’s political campaign in an avalanche of negative associations.

Rudy shuddered as he remembered how hard he had worked to tell his dangerous truth, and worried that one of those jokers from the old days might try to sell the story to the tabloids. Anyone, skinny Porty, or fat-guy Fred (‘I trusted you . . .’), or Sal, might recognize Rudy, see a light-skinned Black woman next to him on stage at some Demo- cratic rally, and put two and two together. What if one of those guys noticed the twins as Kennedy knock-offs? And what about the social stigma his wife Sarah would suffer as an ‘adulteress’? More pain and confusion than their family could ever handle.

Of course, beyond the political dangers, there was the possibility of actual physical harm. Hadn’t the assassins who murdered Jack and Bobby Kennedy accomplished their horrific deeds in spite of the highest possible security? What would it take to kill a Little? Someone could just waltz in, anywhere, anytime, and take them out.

Before Sarah and Rudy went to bed that night, they gathered up her collection of journals from the bookshelf, eleven volumes (less the one she had given the twins for their thirty-fifth birthday), and placed them carefully in a cardboard box. Sarah taped the flaps shut and slid it deep into the bedroom closet, way back behind the shoes. Dangling coats made it all but disappear. She’d have to remember to ask Jackson if she could borrow back Volume One.

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