American tabloid

RFK: It sounds trite, but you don’t talk like an ex-showgirl.

BJ: Have you met a lot of them?

RFK: Quite a few, yes.

BJ: When you were investigating gangsters?

RFK: No, when my brother introduced me to them.

BJ: Did they have a common denominator?

RFK: Yes. Availability.

BJ: I’d have to agree with that.

RFK: Are you going out with Le

BJ: We’re not dating. He just brought me to the party.

RFK: How did he bill the gathering?

BJ: He didn’t say, ‘come join the harem,’ if that’s what you mean.

RFK: Then you noticed the high woman to man ratio.

BJ: You know I did, Mr. Ke

RFK: Call me Bob.

BJ: All right, Bob.

RFK: I’m just assuming that since you know Peter and Le

BJ: I think I follow you.

RFK: I know you do. I’m only mentioning it because I’ve known Le

BJ: I don’t like Peter. I had a fling with him several years ago, and I broke it off when I saw that he was really no better than a toady and a pimp. I came to this party because Le

RFK: Please, I didn’t mean to offend you.

BJ: You didn’t.

RFK: When I get hornswoggled into evenings like this, I find myself checking out the anomalies from a security standpoint. When the anomaly is a woman, well, you see what I mean.

BJ: Given the other women here, It’s good to be an anomaly.

RFK: I’m bored and two drinks over my limit. I don’t normally get so personal with people I just met.

BJ: Want to hear a good joke?

RFK: Sure.

BJ: What did Pat Nixon say about her husband?

RFK: I don’t know.

BJ: Richard was a strange bedfellow long before he entered politics.

RFK (laughing): Jesus, that’s a riot. I’ll have to tell that to-

Garbled (airplane flying overhead). Remainder of BJ-RFK conversation lost to static.

11:05-11:12: Hi-fi noise amp; car noise indicate that BJ is walking thru house amp; that people are leaving the party.

11:13-11:19: BJ talking directly to microphone. (Tell her not to do this. It’s a security risk.)

BJ: I’m out on this deck overlooking the beach. I’m alone, and I’m whispering so people won’t hear what I’m saying or think I’m crazy. I haven’t met the Big Man yet, but I noticed him notice me and nudge Peter like he was saying, who’s the redhead? It’s freezing out here, but I dug a mink coat out of a closet, and now I’m nice and warm. Le

11:20-11:27: silence. (Wave noise indicates that BJ has remained on the beach deck.)

11:28-11:40: BJ amp; JFK.

JFK: Hi.

BJ: Jesus.

JFK: Hardly, but thanks anyway.

BJ: How about, hello, Mr. President?

JFK: How about, hello, Jack?

BJ: Hello, Jack.

JFK: What’s your name?

BJ: Barb Jahelka.

JFK: You don’t look like a Jahelka.

BJ: It’s Lindscott, actually. I work with my exhusband, so I kept my married name.

JFK: Is Lindscott Irish?

BJ: It’s an Anglo-German bastardization.

JFK: The Irish are all bastards. Bastards, cranks and drunks.

BJ: Can I quote you?

JFK: After I’m re-elected. Put it in the portable John F. Ke

BJ: Can I ask you a question?

JFK: Sure.

BJ: Is being President of the United States the biggest fucking blast on earth?

JFK (sustained laughter): It truly is. Your supporting cast of characters is worth the price of admission alone.

BJ: For instance?

JFK: That rube Lyndon Johnson. Charles de Gaulle, who’s had a poker up his ass since the year 1910. That closet fairy J. Edgar Hoover. These crazy Cuban exiles my brother’s been dealing with, 80% of whom are lowlife scum. Harold Macmillan, who defines the word-

MU2: Excuse me, Mr. President.

JFK: Yes?

MU1: You have a call.

JFK: Tell them I’m busy.

MU2: It’s Governor Brown.

JFK: Tell him I’ll call him back.

MU1: Yes, Sir.

JFK: So, Barb, did you vote for me?

BJ: I was on tour, so I didn’t get the chance to vote.

JFK: You could have cast an absentee ballot.

BJ: It slipped my mind.

JFK: What’s more important, the Twist or my career?

BJ: The Twist.

JFK (sustained laughter): Excuse my naivete. When you ask a silly question.

BJ: It was more like ask a candid question, get a candid answer.

JFK: That’s true. You know, my brother thinks you’re overqualified for this party.

BJ: He acts like he’s slumming himself.

JFK: That’s perceptive.

BJ: Your brother never won a dime at poker.

JFK: Which is one of his strengths. Now, what happens when this silly dance craze of yours wears itself out?

BJ: I’ll have saved enough money to set my sister up in a Bob’s Big Boy franchise in Tu

JFK: I carried Wisconsin.

BJ: I know. My sister voted for you.

JFK: What about your parents?

BJ: My father’s dead. My mother hates Catholics, so she voted for Nixon.

JFK: A split vote isn’t too bad. That’s a lovely mink, by the way.

BJ: I borrowed It from Peter.

JFK: Then it’s one of the six thousand furs my father bought my sisters.

BJ: I read about your father’s stroke. It made me sad.

JFK: Don’t be. He’s too evil to die. And by the way, do you travel with that revue Peter told me about?

BJ: Constantly. In fact, I’m leaving for an East Coast swing on the 27th.

JFK: Would you leave your itinerary with the White House switchboard? I thought we might have di

BJ: I’d like that. And I will call.

JFK: Please. And take the mink with you. You do things for it that my sister never could.

BJ: I couldn’t.

JFK: I insist. Really, she won’t miss it.

BJ: All right, then.

JFK: I don’t normally raid people’s closets, but I want you to have it.

BJ: Thank you, Jack.

JFK: My pleasure. And regretfully, I have to make some phone calls.

BJ: Until next time, then.

JFK: Yes. That’s the way to look at it.

MU1: Mr. President?

JFK: Hold on, I’m coming.

11:41-12:03: silence. (Wave noise indicates that BJ has remained on the beach deck.)

12:03-12:09: garbled voices and hi-fi noise. (Obvious departures throughout.)

12:10: BJ amp; LS leave the party. Live tape feed olose: 12:11 a.m., February 20, 1962.