“What Made Jack Happy” by Lem Billings

(June 23rd, 2024 – afternoon)

I spent years trying to be Jack’s lover. Jack Kennedy. I’m sure you’ve likely heard of him. Well…for now that is. Maybe someday you won’t know who Jack Kennedy is. Or who the Kennedys even are in general.

Transcend by IRSNa plays.

What was it like? Incredibly unfulfilling. …And I tried to say as much but it was always misunderstood. Because I spent years…trying to be Jack’s lover.

I’m Kirk LeMoyne Billings. I’m a ghost. A dead person. …And Lacey…has drifted into the real realm of the dead, so to speak, because she’s been too neglected and unloved in her life so she talks to us, and it’s not by choice. We started talking to her first. Decades ago.

I was straight. So I failed him.

He’d go wading in the ocean near their family house on Cape Cod and I’d sit on the shore and watch. And…he’d walk around in the water as if he was searching for something. Waiting for something to come to him. And I’d watch him and…feel guilty. Because I couldn’t give him what he wanted most. Love. Real love. …But I was good at…well…essentially babysitting him. And I think he felt comfortable. You know? …I felt…safe and non-threatening to him. But…I never could get around to it. And he’d get very quiet at times and become incredibly withdrawn and sad. But I could act gay, bring him to Cape Cod…buy him his drugs…get him his women and schedule his day…and yet at the end of the day, which must have on a certain level felt very cold to him, I was…frigid. …I gave him sexual favors. And I was the one who first took what we were doing seriously, as I believed we were both homosexual. And I was wrong as I was straight and he was bisexual. …I didn’t want him. Ever. It was all a mistake to me. Like a horror version of Brideshead Revisited.

The thing is…Jack Kennedy was such a narcissist. A malignant narcissist. So…most of the time he’d not care that I didn’t care. And yes, I fawned over him. It was a trauma response…and it was false. I felt pushed to appease him, so I went overboard and acted as if he was my a absolute everything. And it was obviously fake. But…I guess people aren’t all that perceptive at times. And possibly being gay was still so foreign to people that even gay men didn’t realize how fake I always was. Later I was called moody. …No. I repressed my feelings about everything everyday…and nobody knew. It was only as I grew older and more despondent that I couldn’t keep it to myself all of the time. And the drugs and alcohol I used didn’t help either. …Anyway…he didn’t care…and yet when he’d get quiet and lonely like that…I felt…guilty. Because I knew deep down that I didn’t feel it. I didn’t love him the way I knew someone else could. …But…as I had no one else to love…and he refused to be vulnerable or honest with anyone, including me…what else could I do? Right?

I thought of completely leaving him…and I did try several times actually, over the years. You know? Like maybe if I just got away from him he’d finally get better somehow. At times I thought I was giving the homosexuality like some sort of contractable disease. And if stayed away from him long enough he’d recover. But…he never got over his desire for men, and I never could bring myself to truly love him. Love him in any way. Physically. Emotionally. …No. You don’t know what happened.

…Why did I smile so much at his wedding? Why…did allow for Red Fay? They obviously had some sort of sexual relationship. Right? Come on. …I didn’t care. …Why didn’t the droves of women he slept with bother me?

Lacey’s right. I look straight. …I’m the one who taught her how to tell. …Not that I knew while was alive. But I knew after I died and I wanted her to be able to believe I’d have loved her.

Why is that so damn important? Because…I love her. And…there are other dead men who could love her too. Not as much as I do. But love her.

What made Jack Kennedy happy? Cape Cod. Cape Cod made him happy. …Being high made him happy. …Being in bed with someone made him happy. Prowling around and looking for sex made him happy. …Sailing. He loved to sail. …Good food. …He was relaxed by painting. …He was a terrible travel companion, actually. But he found other cultures intriguing, to a point. He wasn’t a truly intellectual person. Philosophy was often annoying to him. Theology bored him. …And to be honest he wasn’t a very nice man. He could be nice when he wanted to be. But at heart…he was…distant.

Jack was cold as ice. But it didn’t bother me. Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that odd if I wanted him so damn much? …No. I simply did not. …I took the stuff we did seriously and I knew it was homosexual behavior…but…he did not like that. And…I didn’t care.

So when he’d waltz around in the water…drunk…lonely…and searching and I’d follow paces behind him…forcing a smile whenever he’d turn around…it was very dark. I was lost. Forlorn. I’d given-up almost entirely. …And he was…his own worst enemy.

Are homosexuals insane? Ask God. If they are…they’re often insane together these days and…sometimes insane people share delusions. And sometimes, sadly, our delusions fulfill some part of us that’s not insane, like the need to be deeply loved by one beautiful person who we also love. …I needed that and never had it. Jack Kennedy needed that too but he never admitted it.

And maybe what’s most aggravating and sad to Lacey…is that I do love her. Profoundly. …And it’s a part of me and my personality and heart that Jack Kennedy never knew and maybe…he’d be given closure if he could have just allowed himself to see that and realize it was all fake…for real. You know? I’m just not who he thought I was. But…instead of healing and being loved and loving…he chose evil. And now it’s harder for you to hear me too.

You can’t make something there that isn’t there. You can create things…but they weren’t there before.