Confessions from Red Gate Farm

In another world, another time…

August 2022

I need to get this all down before he comes back. He’s out, for now, and I have no idea where the clever little bastard might be. You’d think with all the balmy boyhood summers and quiet winters I’ve spent on the Vineyard, I’d know where to find anyone. Any pub, pontoon, hidden dockyard, shanty, cabana, or tennis instructor pool house should be no match for me, given all my gallivanting through Oak Bluffs, Tilsbury, and Chillmark. A youth spent wigged out and wasted on whatever I could find. Splintered docks, golf carts driven into living rooms, entire streets with brass mailboxes toppled onto dewy emerald lawns—blurs from what seem like five or six lifetimes ago. I’m rambling again. Regardless, the little fucker’s location remains a mystery until he chooses to reveal himself. Always sneaks up on me. People melt into this place, but I guess that’s the appeal of Martha’s Vineyard. You’re able to recuse yourself from the day-to-day, from any semblance of common life. It’s why I come up here. Plus, the sea salt air gives you a rich dose of vitamins A, E, and B12, which are supposed to regulate your adrenal glands. But right now, as I scribble at Aunt Jackie’s desk, my glands are anything but regulated. I could walk out right now and be done with this, but what would that achieve? Without him, I’d just go back to being a fail-son with a decent backhand. We’ve worked too hard to quit now. 

The little freak could be out on the dock overlooking the inlet, sunning himself while yachts and catamarans drift by. Would an accident be all that bad? This local rascal, Grugov,one of Kissinger’s kids and a year-long Vineyard resident, might be out there with his speedboat, drunkenly donuting, chopping the surf, and could very well bear down on the dock, send a wave that crests over the little guy in that stupid mason jar, the current catching him like a message in a bottle, out to watery oblivion where he belongs. 

Cheryl and I have had our fair share of Grugov, back when we used to come up to Red Gate Farm together. Hey, blondie! he once yelled at her, all guttural and low from his Donzi 22 Classic, Nice tatas! then he conjured a wake so intense it tipped our dock chairs over, and we fell into the water. Our fresh collagen implants infused with jellyfish venom enlarged our lips into widemouth bass. The swelling compelled us to speed-dial our on-call inflammation maharishi. Those were less complicated days, when my biggest problems were a couple dead Samoans in a measles outbreak and a lip infection. Back when the Vineyard was an escape, a paradise—for both of us—but not anymore. I still see Grugov around. Every time he motors by, he asks, When am I  going to see Cheryl’s tight tushee again? He’s harmless. The kid reminds me of a younger me but with an ambiguous Slavic accent. They can’t help it. Virility is a genetic trait brought on by the titanium in their blood, but here I am, rambling again. I really need to make sure I get this on record before I lose myself entirely, but would that be so bad? The next time he’s in, he may never let me go. I might not come back.

I’m here at Red Gate, alone. Well, not quite alone. Just not keeping the company I prefer. No crème de l ‘eite to be found. Only bottom feeders here. Nothing like those July Fourth parties of yesteryear: burgers and sliced cheddar sizzling, bubbling on the grill. People came out of the ground, it seemed. Stalks of dignitaries, senators, reality T.V. stars, movie producers, and so many kids running around playing Cowboys and Indians, you had to watch your step at every turn, take extra precaution that no little ones were around snooping on Cousin Bobby, who’s trying to hide away for a quick fix. The dumbwaiter was always my favorite spot. No one suspects the dumbwaiter. Returning to Aunt Jackie’s estate takes me back to those detox days when I was at square zero: a kid, a problem man-child sweating and shitting out his latest relapse. I’m clean now, but all those sleepless days and nights, they’re burrowed inside me. 

Writing at this desk in Aunt Jackie’s old bedroom, flanked by spindled bedframe posts that resemble church steeples—my confession indeed—I begin to wonder if this is how St. Augustine felt, though I’ve never read Augustine. I was never attentive in prep school. Jesuits, Franciscans, every order of monks, they had no shot at beating the Lord’s word into me, and they’d never dare beat me. The worst punishment I got from those necktie sweater vest days was a week of polishing the tabernacle after raiding the holy wine and showing Sister Ruth the moon of my ass. A good Irish Catholic boy I certainly am not, but a Kennedy never gets a case of rawhide. Red Gate is the closest I’ll ever get to monastic life, though. In a sense, I’ve grown well-accustomed to isolation. I miss Cheryl deeply. I miss talking to anyone, truthfully. I mean, really speaking to someone when he isn’t around. 

So many memories here. On the far wall of the bedroom is this corkboard pinned with newspaper clippings, magazine profiles, featuring all the Kennedy kids and grandkids because Aunt Jackie was so proud. There’s a section dedicated to me. She picked up this hobby from my Dad and Uncle Jack. They’d do the same thing—up late at night like boys poring over a local story covering their little league championship. Poor woman. She had to smile through everything. All that media training as First Lady doesn’t go away. Always smiling, even through blood and tears. Either that, or she’d developed a recessive version of Angelman Syndrome. Usually happens to people exposed to high concentrations of lead paint (common among 47% of mothers of Ashkenazi descent, based on my research). She liked having me over after Dad died, but I’m glad she didn’t get to see my darkest days. I remember nights soaking the bed sheets, staring at these headlines on the corkboard floating in moonlight, wondering what went wrong. But I knew the answer.

There Will Be Another Kennedy as Commander in Chief…Just Not Teddy

Handsome and Harvard Bound—RFK II is All Grown Up

Bobby Kennedy, Jr: Next in Line for Camelot?

Every time I fell back, I ended up at Red Gate, stumbling through its empty hallways. I’d run into cobwebs spun across doorways of long-vacant rooms and see the peeling blue seashell wallpaper, encounter hallucinations of my cousins. Roars of laughter in the next room. The mischievous slap of David’s bare feet on the creaking hardwood, trying to catch a midnight sail while everyone was fast asleep. My shit-kicking little brother. But no one was there. Not anymore. Just me. The one who couldn’t get off the pipe until he was nearly thirty. One year older than poor David. These voices. I could always hear them in my dreams. A peculiar voice would visit me in the cold sweat evening. Stir me awake. Not quite a voice, but a presence. A whisper I couldn’t make out. Quiet overtures unheard, but I knew they were there, trying to break through like some dark figure who sees you in the window and gives you a wave. I thought I was losing my mind, but it was him all along. I am a haunted man. Haunted by him. I shouldn’t be calling it him, but it’s hard given all we’ve been through. I’ve stalled long enough. I need to come clean and tell the truth, for once. How I got to be what I am.

The trouble began in March 2012. I won’t get into much detail, but it was a simple misunderstanding. We all know the intern laugh. It’s infectious. There was mercury in the water, and my judgment was clouded. Her laugh tingled my glands. My glands! they were out of control. The body can’t interpret signals as well as the mind. She sped away from Hickory Hill before I could inform her of this hormonal imbalance, so I did what any decent, responsible, dignified man would do in that situation and called my lawyer.

I had to get out of town, so I headed North. My wife, Mary, left me a voicemail while I drove up I-95. Bobby…again? You fucker. We were at the beginning of the end. I feel bad about it sometimes. Some couples just can’t handle a difficult marriage. Get through each other’s mistakes, especially the mistakes you journal, and then your wife finds that journal under the mattress (only a few months after the intern debacle). I’m no choir boy. Folks who don’t know what they’re talking about argue Mary finding my log of conquests is to blame for what eventually happened to her. But what about me? I’d lost my father, two of my uncles, and a dear brother in only a fifty-year span. We all grieve in different ways. My attorney strongly advised I get my freckled ass up to old Red Gate. Go alone, he prescribed. Little did I know, I had a guest lying in wait. One who would alter the course of my life and history itself. If only the American people knew the truth. Maybe they will. Someday. Someday this will all make sense.

I took the ferry. Brought two bags. One for clothes, one for…other things. If you’ve ever seen photos of me, I always carry two briefcases. One with a snap lock made of black Albanian leather, the other a satchel flap of brown Belgian Congo elephant hide. The brown one is filled with various vitamins, essential probiotic metals, petrified prosciutto meat capsules, ducolaxical anti-pesticides, and collections of…well…me, essentially. Pillboxes of toenails, fingernails, phials of stray hairs, discarded pubic strands, shorn rump locks, slides of dried mucus, and one mason jar containing a pickled brainworm.  

Earlier that year, doctors found a mass in my brain. Upon further examination, it turned out to be a parasite growing along the base of my skull. How it got up there escapes me. Might’ve been the mystery meat hot pot I ate with Chairman Kim while brokering a wind turbine deal between North Korea and Mongolia before realizing windmills are against Mongolian religious practices—at least this is what I gathered from my limited fluency in Mongolian. After doctors removed the parasite, I put it in a jar of Hellmann’s pickle juice. It gleamed green and dark like a carnival cabinet of curiosities. I kept it as a reminder of my brush with death. Now it serves as another totem.

Let me preface by saying I’m not one of those depraved loonies who compulsively collect dead skin and cuticles. That would make me mentally inferior, autistic even, and obviously I’m not. I’m an intellectual gymnast! The reason I gather my sheddings is because I follow the principles of biorecycling. It’s a new field dieticians are calling the future of nutrition, especially with imminent food shortages. Excluding the contents of waste (poop and pee, speaking medically), I grind up these materials into a powder and mix them into my nutrient shakes. A simple recipe anyone at home can try. Raspberries and strawberries (for flavor), de-corned corncobs, vinegar-blanched cashews, two slices of durian, some pesto, and a fistful of flakes and/or strands (for texture). The science hasn’t quite caught up with the anecdotal evidence for biorecycling, but all in good time. I wanted to see if the parasite was nutritionally viable, so I could include it in my recipe. I could never get a specialist to run a biopsy, and whenever I’d prepare to blend it, throw a dash of worm in a stew or stir fry, I couldn’t bring myself to open the jar. I felt attached. It had been a part of me for so long. I brought it with me everywhere.

I pulled into Red Gate once again a prodigal fuck-up. I laid in Aunt Jackie’s bedroom, flat over the covers, dressed in salmon shorts with a cream wool sweater wrapped around my neck, which strained from self-administered injections of whale blubber to counteract my collagen deficiency. Sitting up, I stared out the window, heard the foghorn, and squinted at the passing glare of the lighthouse on the horizon. There was total quiet. All but for this ting-tinging sound, like tapping glass. I saw nothing in the window or hallway. I checked my alloy fillings to make sure none had fallen out. Looking at my bags, I noticed the brown satchel had tipped over with the flap open. Something was clinking against the wooden bed leg: the mason jar containing the brain-borne parasite.

I held it up to my face, twisted the lid a quarter-turn to the left, and it popped off. The lid smacked against the wall and remained there, stuck like a dart. From the mason jar emerged none other than my brainworm. Alive! Purple and brownish spots along its thin, al dente body streaked with vinegar and pickle brine. Stubs of underdeveloped hands gripped onto the brim as it peered over the edge with these tiny slits for eyes. It coughed sourly and took in a gasp of fresh Vineyard air. We stared at each other. It tilted toward me and snaked close to my eyes before it finally spoke.

If it isn’t the Captain of the Hyannis Pohrt Terrahs! How are ya, Bawby!

I collapsed, dropping the jar. I slid my butt along the floor until my back pressed against the hickory desk. Dark juice was all over the antique rug. Spoiled pickled amniote got on my Hilfiger shorts. Ruined. The jar stood flipped over, lid-down. The Worm had climbed on top, rested in a side lean, forming the shape of an S. Its voice was so familiar. 

Bawby! the Worm said again with a mouth that opened and closed like an oyster. 

You’re alive? You-you can talk? I stuttered—at this point, my glands were off the charts. 

Anothah brillyant deduction frum the Rivuh Keepah! 

But…how? 

The Worm started to shake, and out from under him grew two twiggy legs with a pair of finlike toes on each foot. He now resembled more a reptile than a wormlike, cranial alien. The abomination let out a satisfied, flexing grunt. 

Ah! that’s bettah, Mr. Worm said, bending his kneeless knees. Huh…thawt I’d grow mor more toes, but as I always say, Change is often unexpected, but it’s the law of life!

Wait…Uncle Jack? Is that you? 

Do I look like yore uncle? 

It can’t be. Uncle Jack… 

Again, nawt yore uncle—

I always knew the CIA conducted anthropod programs, but had no idea they were this advanced! 

The Worm hopped down from the jar, waddled across the floor, tilting from one side to the other, like how a used car dealer’s inflatable blow-up man sways in the wind. I backed away further. Pressed deeper into the hickory. The Worm went tsk-tsk-tsk.

Anthrapawds? Bawby…

But you sound so much like him. How is this possible? 

The Worm pensively paced in front of me, leaving tiny, pickled footprints on the rug. His nubby hands, now knuckled, folded behind him in a professorial manner. The thing stared or squinted at me for a good while. Had my glucose levels spiked? Was I wearing too much polyester? Were these delayed side effects of my reverse vasectoplasty? I immediately began to map out a new diet to counteract this mental breakdown. I needed less fiber and more antioxidants. More unpasteurized dairy and less string cheese (though that would prove difficult because I love string cheese). Before I could think of the beverage regimen, I saw Uncle Jack the Worm swinging around his jar as if he were an Olympian on a pommel horse. The acrobatic routine concluded, and he continued to speak while doing handstand pushups. 

How do any of us know how we gawt here, Bawby? I came frum nothing, or maybe I was brought here by the Great Creeaytuh. Chawk it up to a highah powuh. Yore the expert in that depahtment. Or maybe I’ve always been up there, nested against yore medulah ablong gotta. I sawh every thawt. I heard the echoes of yore mind and followed them, looking for a way out. Except there was no way out. I called for yew every night, hoping to hear an answah. 

My dreams…Waking up in the middle of the night…That was you? 

That was me, kihd. Also, I gawt hungry up theyah, so apologies, but I chowhd down on yore amygdalah.

This was too unbelievable to process. His/its story flew in the face of science, medical consensus, and general reason. But the Worm was real. I knew that much. 

But—Mr. Worm—whoever you are. You sound so much like how I remember him. 

Maybe it’s becawse I ate those memories. 

Huh! That explains the brain fog. The blackouts. The…uhhh…indiscretions. It makes sense. I knew it wasn’t all my fault.

Shoruhhh, Bawby. Shoruhh. 

I stood up, but then I had to sit back down on the bed. I became dizzy but calmed myself with a chamomile EpiPen. I’d heard plenty about the strange and supernatural, but never guessed a cover story from Weird Science Medical would be right in front of me, trying to get a mason jar right side up. He looked up at me and said, Little help heahh? 

I obliged, of course. 

Even though I knew this wasn’t my uncle, I still felt like I was helping Uncle Jack in the same way I’d fix Grandpa Joe’s scarf. The Worm began to convulse, twisted his lumpy, cylindrical body the way you wrung out a wet t-shirt. As he spun back to normal, a freckle of a nose popped out. 

Where did you come from? I asked while sliding to the floor, laid belly-down on the rug.

He shrugged his shoulders, that is, if he had any shoulders. Brainworm Jack dipped his lower half into whatever was left of the pickle juice. Drops absorbed into his flaccid body, then he hopped out, and wrapped himself around the jar. I proceeded with my inquisition of the creature’s origin. 

Did you come from the fluids that seeped into my car when I bungee-corded the head of a beached whale to the roof of my Subaru? 

Now, I know for a fact I was up in yore nawggin before the whale. I remembuh the smell! 

Maybe it was the neurotoxins from pufferfish acupuncture. I do remember the brain fog starting up around that time. 

Yore guess is as guhd as mine, Bawby boy!

Uncle Jack the Worm sprang from the jar, onto the bed, and landed with a squish. I knew he kept saying he wasn’t my Uncle Jack and was just Jackie the Brainworm, but hearing that voice in a place like this. So many memories. Nights under the Vineyard stars, backyard teepees, family meetings by the fireplace, letting Oswald (my falcon) loose through the kitchen, piles of boat shoes in the mudroom, all the cigar smoke, Aunt Jackie walking around with a tray of deviled eggs. So many careers began, ruined, halted for the good of the family. At Red Gate, it was decided I was going to law school, while David would head out to Tennessee and write for a local paper. The vibrations of this place brought back some version of my uncle, even if the Worm didn’t believe it. I kneeled at the foot of the bed, my chin on the duvet, watching the creature slip around. 

It’s good to see you, Uncle Jack—I mean—Mr. Worm. Uhhh, I know this is an odd question, and you just got your legs, literally, but would you like to…hang out?

Mr. Worm jumped on my shoulder and leaned against my left earlobe. He smelled of bitter rank. 

Bawby, nothing wud please me moreuhh! 

We rifled through Uncle Jack’s old wardrobe to find the Worm a proper Vineyard getup. I’m sure Aunt Jackie would be happy to see her late husband’s clothes finally get some use. The Worm nibbled at sweaters and polos, bit off fuzzy thread strands, spun around turbine quick, and fashioned several invertebrate-friendly outfits. Each time, he emerged from the closet with Tah-dah! and I clapped along like a giddy schoolboy. He took his newly formed phalanges and weaved and pressed all sorts of effects and accessories. Sailor caps, smokers’ jackets, casual squash gear, but we ultimately landed on khaki shorts with a pink sweater tied around the collar of a greenish polo. 

Thin espresso hair strands bloomed from the top of Brainworm Jack’s pecker head. They rested in a natural coif just like #35: my uncle, though not quite my uncle. When I lost him, like my father, a part of me died, wasted away, but turns out they were always part of me. In some form. He plunked onto my shoulder, and we made our way to the front yard. I asked if he might indulge me with a game of catch. 

Turns out the Worm has a pretty good arm. Used a boulder as his pitcher's mound and looked, from major league distance, like a detached waggly finger spinning a baseball around. Throws overhead like a sideout in a soccer match. Not a bad knuckleball either. Whether left-to-sink, top-to-bottom, or if it carried right-then-back-and-to-the-left, it always surprised me. Like the ball was magic or came from an entirely different angle. Uncle Jack was always such a good athlete before his back issues. If only I knew then what I know now about high-intensity lumbar therapy, then maybe we would be a different nation. But, again, this wasn’t my uncle. After having our fill of America’s pastime, reliving Parnell’s no-no back in ‘56, we took Sail Force One out for a spin. The westerly wind caught us nicely as we headed to the quiet afternoon village of Edgartown. He was on the rudder while I took care of the jib. All was well until a flock of seagulls divebombed us, but the Worm was able to duck and avoid them. 

Ha! ya squawking bastahds! Now I know how yore uncle felt on PT-109! Land ho!

Edgartown was empty. Streetlights buzzed. Most shops close by noon during the down months, or don’t open at all until spring-summer arrives. Brainworm Jack pogo’d up and down the streets the way a slinky falls down a staircase. We looked like tourists looking for a Memorial Day yacht party in the middle of April, except one of us was a worm. With all the stores closed, I couldn’t educate him on Vineyard staples: saltwater taffy was a no-go, and Wicked Smaht Candles was boarded up. But then, I had an idea.

Down that street is a bar, I declared. MacNamara’s. Used to be a regular haunt for us Kennedys. Want to go? I know a way in from the back. 

Nawty, nawty, Bawby boy! 

The back door still had a janky lock. We entered the empty, dusty bar. Wobbly tables held up overturned chairs with cracked legs. At the far end was a darkened stage for karaoke nights. I switched on the fuse box, and MacNamara’s started right back up for another round. All the lights turned on. They seemed to displace the dust. Lights from the disco ball spread and converged along the chipped walls and dirty floor. Mice scurried back into keyholes, burrowed behind the ATM. The Worm went to the karaoke machine and started scrolling through options. He then bounced over to the stool onstage, stood in front of the mic, and began to sing. 

Thuh summah breeze

Came frum the Eastern Seahh 

to the shoruhh of Biscayne Bay

Thuh summah cheaah 

was lowd and cleahh 

acrawss Camelawt nights no gayuhh…

Many a night, I had to be scraped off the floor of this bar. Both David and I. Ray, the owner, said a Kennedy never had to pay for drinks or a cab, and I took him at his word. Ray’s a good man. For a short time, he was actually my financial advisor and the shadow treasurer of River Keeper. Probably why MacNamara’s remains open to this day. I turned to the bar. Above the empty shelves was a presidential portrait of you-know-who. Below was another. A black-and-white photo of my father and Uncle Teddy in white dress shirts, ordering a round for some locals, all smiling because these DC boys had come back home. On a shelf, where there would normally be an array of mid-tier bourbon and vodka, was a picture of my father and me. Little me as a toddler, my father smiling at someone out of frame. His hair sun-bleached. Me in diapers on his lap. I wiped sawdust off the frame. Dad…

…I had no voyce 

and given no choyce 

but, by Gawd, now I’m a winnuh! 

So I’ll say it lowd 

and I’ll say it prowd…

Ich…bin ein…Berlinah! 

On a dock outside Edgartown, we slurped virgin daiquiris. The sun had a purple wane. Sail Force One bobbed and strained the ropes tethering the vessel from being carried out by high tide. I held Uncle Brainworm’s cup, and he sat on my wrist while he glugged. Gulping, his body pulsed, characteristically, like an inchworm squirming across a muddy lawn. I don’t know where he put it, but after three swigs, the pinkish drink was halfway gone. The little bastard took his sucker off the straw and looked out at the surf. He tapped me with his always-wet knub of a hand. A speedboat went across our view. Grugov’s boat. Probably drunk off his keel. 

Thanks for showing me around, kihd. What a day!

It was quite the day, I agreed. Wait until Easter. That’s when things really start to pick up. You know, with how you handled that rudder, we make a pretty good team. 

Funny yew shud mention that…

The Worm took a big slug of his daiquiri, all gone. 

Ya know, being up in yore nawggin gawt me thinking. About what we could be…togethuh…now with this new situation. Shoruhhh, being Wormboy is great, but the world’s too big for a creatuh like me to make an impact. One wrong step, and it’s Squishville. Up there in yore ceruhbellum, it was like being paht of something huge. I’m meant for something moreuhh. Don’t yew wish yew cuda been moreuhh, Bawby? 

All the time, I replied, popping my mouth off the straw. If I could go back—

But what if yew cud guarantee a prosperous fuchah?

What’re you saying? 

I’ll be blunt. Bawby, yore a fahk-up. More of a fahk-up than when yore Aunt Jackie said, Honey…why don’t we take the cunvertabul instead of the Cahdillac? So many fahk-ups it was hahd to keep track. The pills, the boozin, the lawsuits—

All the times I hurt Mary, I remarked, head down. A drop of daiquiri went into the surf. 

Who’s Mary? 

She’s my wife…

The Worm cupped his chin. Wyfe…wyfe…Oh! Yore wyfe! Huh, yew hahdly think about ‘er. 

Bullshit. 

I wud know, wudn’t I? 

I heard Grugov’s speedboat bounding the surf. A buoy bell rang amid its wake. 

Yew may nawt know it, kihd, but I’ve gawtten you out of a pinch beforah. Remembah when ya blacked out in Provincetown but were stone cold sobah? Gawt picked up in yore skivvies? 

I remembered this near-indiscretion. A lifeguard and I connected in front of the snow cone stand at the country club. She asked if I wanted to get together after her shift. I remembered sitting on a corduroy couch, and she took a hit from a glass pipe, then handed it to me. Next thing I knew, I was getting flashlit by a traffic cop while rolling around in a bed of cattails. 

It was incredible, kihd, the Worm continued. Like I was a circuit boahd on yore brain. My thawts became yore actions. I gawt us outta there. I didn’t want yew to chafe at the burden of yore obligations. We have too much to offuh. Yew understand?

So, you’re saying you stopped me from having a relapse because you think I have potential? Potential to be…The Big One?

The Worm vibrated and out plopped these manicured eyebrows. Had to admit, he was a handsome little Worm.

Gawd, no! he replied with a grimace. But yore name’s gawt potential. 

But where do you come in? 

He snaked around and up the varicose pole of my leg, settled to constrict my torso. 

If I gawt back up there and dug around, he said, I could have arenahs chanting R-F-Kay! R-F-Kay!

But it wouldn’t be me. It would be you doing this. 

Me…Yew…why’re ya hung up on semantics? Think of it as a team effaht. 

He sprang from my belt line and landed on my shoulder, whispered from one ear to the other. 

Bawby, Bawby. Just think if it all worked out. Imagine, yew cud put Kennedy back on the map. Nawt just some shill movie produsah or Special Olympics ambassadah. Bygawn legacies with nothing to show for it. This could set you apaht. A Kennedy back in pawlitics. I’d even help with the personal stuff. Prawblems with Mary? Ancient histry. I cud even get you a new wyfe. A Hollywood match?

Like Marilyn? 

See, this is where ya need me, kihd. Can’t have some bawmshell. We get ourselves a T.V. girl, and then it’s book deal, media circuit, we talk with four fat ladies on daytime television, and their fatties in the audience will clap like Cape Cawd seals, and before yew know it, yore the hawt numbah for DC! 

I’m a recovering addict with two failed marriages. This isn’t in the cards. 

It’s awl about how ya play the cahds, Bawby.

He slunk back down, encircling my torso. Grugov’s speedboat came around the bend once more, but this time he caught a sandbar, and the vessel crunched to a stop. His speck of a body fell forward and popped back up, hand on head. Smoke began to billow out of the engine. The kid jumped ship and swam to land. The Worm saw the whole thing but elected to stay on topic.

Creeping around yore head, he continued, taking a whiff of the fumes brought by the sea breeze, I sawh what really goes on up there. The guilt weighs heavy, Bawby. Brothuh David. Speedballs. Basement nawdoffs. Yew wanna prove yore puhpose but can’t help but fahk it up. It’s in yore nature. We can use that to our advantage. America wants a redemption story. They want someone to say they can ova-come their demons. Naht becawse it is easy, but becawse it is hahd. They just don’t realize the secret is a trust fund, countless second chances, and me guiding yew along the way. But we can spare them those details. Can yew imagine it? Humah me, and close yore eyes.

I obeyed. Felt him come close. A voice soft and hissing. Distant. In the background a foghorn, the metallic shift of the twirling, faraway lighthouse. 

It’s the Nevadah primary. Yew’ve lost by double digits but did bettah than most pundits expected. Yore standin’ awn the podium. New wife at yore side. Tickah tape. Trombones. Straw hats. Waving to a cheering crowd. A giant postah unravels. Kennedy for President. Kennedy-Kennedy-Kennedy-Kennedy. They love yew. But yew announce the end of yore candidacy. A man in a tawp hat, standing in the raftahs is givin’ yew the thumbs up because he’s yore ticket and yore the bandwagon he needs to reign into his camp, becawse enough people think what yew say is true. It resonates with the coal minuhs, the drawpouts, the intahnet chatrooms. It has the powuh to swing an election. Can ya picture it, kihd?

I can. I do. 

Do ya trust me?

Yes…

Fantastic! Now, in ordah for this dream to come true, I gotta get up yore Bay of Pigs! 

Wha—Hey!—What’s…ahk!...

I felt him wriggling up my esophagus. He bounced around my intestines, squeezed between my arteries, made a wrong turn at my left cornea, and eventually settled on the outer rim of my brain. I saw myself in the reflection of the water. My vision was curtained, and I watched my hands lightly press against my face, but I wasn’t the one moving my hands. Could barely feel my face. Then my eyes moved from the surf, to the boat, then back to the surf. But they weren’t my eyes. My eyes were doing the watching on behalf of someone or something else. When I told myself to open my mouth, nothing happened. Then I thought, What the hell’s going on? Why can’t I talk? and out came the most horrifying, raspiest voice. 

Huh…interesting, I watched my puppeteered mouth remark in the reflection of the rippled water lapping against the dock posts. A verbalized smoker’s cough. A shivering, frightened, dried-out box of a voice. 

What have you done, Mr. Worm?

Bobby, calm down, the Worm ordered. Whole syllables lost and stifled in this new, jittery, strangled vernacular. 

What are you doing? 

This is what I was talking about. Our two brains working together, it’s just with me at the helm. Like I’m at the rudder, and you’re on the jib. We can accomplish amazing things. Campaign trails. Book deals. Late-night television. Company boardrooms. Big money!

But when will you let me out? I asked—more so begged. 

My/his/our mouth kept twitching. Every breath created this vibration, like I was watching through the lens of a shaky camcorder. I felt sensations of the sea breeze, the final warmth of the setting sun, but only in pulsating fragments. To be utterly immobile but feel the world outside me, to see it unfolding beyond the veil of my control. I asked again, Mr. Worm…when are you going to let me out? 

Ummm…We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, let me get a handle on your motor skills.

I felt a jolt, and we were standing, then not. We hit the dirt. I saw our arms and legs flop impotently, twitching, rising, then falling back down. The Worm’s voice came back on.

Looks like that bridge has been crossed, Bobby. You think you can handle the walking, while I handle the talking?

What else could I do? With all my mental might—remember what I said about being an intellectual gymnast—I got us upright, and we headed back into town. Our first steps were unsteady. We looked at ourself in a darkened storefront window, the streetlamps illuminating this new Prometheus. Our reflection a marionetting Frankenstein hobbling and goosestepping along Main Street.

Bobby, said the Worm. You need to focus. You think I can get you to Capitol Hill looking like Boris Karloff? 

And tried I did. Eventually, we began to walk normally, then broke into a jog. We turned a corner and realized we weren’t alone. A pudgy man of Irish stock and balding frizz. Skin tags peppered across his cheeks and neck. The shock caused me to lose focus, so we fell down as if the puppet strings had been snipped off. Catching a better view, I saw the face that peered over a protruding gut belonged to none other than Ray, the owner of MacNamara’s. 

Ray said in his Massachusetts honk, Need a hahnd there, Bahb? 

He lifted us up, and we thanked him. He was understandably taken aback by our marble-mouthed choke of a voice. We proceeded with small talk. The Worm handled the questions reasonably well. Didn’t have long pauses or disjointed answers. In my former life, the simplest questions set me off on tangents about falconry or my affinity for Levis (the only jeans known to increase your T count). He asked what I was doing around here in the offseason, and the Worm came up with some cockamamie (though potentially believable) story about how I had developed this neurological condition called spasmodified mute-o-phonia and that I was on the Vineyard recovering from an experimental surgery.  

It was quite the ordeal, Ray. Had to make a 140-mile journey on foot to an ancient temple in the mountains of Osaka, where the elders performed an operation to separate my vocal cords with bamboo. 

He seemed to buy it, but he cringed at every turn of phrase. This new voice sounded worn and scorched. The Worm could sense this. We both did. 

Ray, what seems to be bothering you?

What are you doing? I asked the Worm from the void. 

Shhhhh, I’m trying something out. 

Ray tilted his head with a frown. Whaht was that, Bahb? 

Uh, nothing. Does my voice bother you? 

Naht to be nosey, but how didya catch spasmodal whatty-what? Are ya contagious? 

Not that I’m aware of, my friend. The powers that be want to keep me quiet, and that’s how I got to be this way.

What are you doing? 

That’s right, continued the Worm. I was gathering evidence for how they want to spike Havana Syndrome into our cold and flu medications. Make people 25% less cognitive, so they can be more docile. Like a shock collar on a dog.

Mr. Worm—

It’s all in the research, Ray. Too bad we can’t publish any of the material. We somehow lost the flash drive when I was flying to Kyrgyzstan for a conference to speak on the intestinal dangers associated with in-flight meals. The whole luggage bin was emptied somewhere over Chernobyl. But I don’t think they were satisfied. They wanted to make sure I never uttered a word. One day, I took a capsule of super heavy-duty iron, and I was rendered mute. They switched out my pills! But I’m grateful to the wise men of the Osaka temple. Hopefully I’ll fully recover, but there are no guarantees. Price of telling the truth, right Ray? 

Pull back. Change the subject. 

Ray’s lips quivered in disgust. His skintags were like antennae picking up a signal. The man opened his mouth to speak, but then lowered himself to a whisper, made sure no one else could hear besides me—well, us. Unbelievable, I thought. The Worm had convinced him.

But, Mistah Kennedy? Who is they? 

Big pharma, CIA, OSHA. Could be a combination of all three.

Ray then pointed across the street: a little colonial shoppe repurposed into a local druggist. Then he said, Even Pete’s Phahmacy? Is Pete in cahoots with OSHAH?

*Seems like it, my friend. It’s a real shame. And the way they’re rolling out the poisoned pill program is that they’ll insert HVS into 13.6% of pill containers across the nation. Not everyone will be affected, but do you want to take that chance?

My Gawd, said Ray. Well, I guess I shud head home and post on the town message bohrd make a few . Let them know the truth. 

Good idea, Ray.

I’ll see ya around, Bahb. Oh, and if ya eva have some books that need…

You’ll be the one I call.

Ray stayed right where he was while we went to the end of the street. I was furious. What was that? You can’t just do that.  

Bobby, tell me you didn’t see the look on his face. He looked like he wanted to kill. You see what we can do together, but think on a massive scale—

The sound of glass breaking, an alarm blaring, and there was Ray picking up another loose block from the brick sidewalk and launching it into another window of Pete’s Pharmacy. 

Maybe we can use this, he muttered to me in our cavernous, emphysemic voice. There’s a kind of disarming quality. The way we talk…it’ll sound like we’re afraid to tell the truth. But despite our disability, we won’t be silenced.

Ray remained in front of the shattered glass. He raised his arm and gave us a thumbs up, and we returned the gesture with a pinched, leathery smile. 

There you have it. My confession. Not that it’ll make much difference. Whenever Brainworm Jack reenters, I feel the real me, the previous me, float away. Kind of how a stage actor whose scene is finished but waits in the wings while the rest of the show carries on. It’s dark in the in-between. Every sensation is dulled. The food I taste is always cut with some absence. The way Cheryl runs her hands through my new hair plugs feels like mist. He almost never lets me come to the forefront. Usually keeps me in the backseat, while I see him ramp up a crowd, sit on a panel, give an interview. Sometimes he’ll throw me a bone and lets me give my children a hug, or if we’re caught sending a journalist a picture of our cock and the Worm doesn’t want to deal with it, he’ll let me endure the wrath of Cheryl, employ me to dodge her stilettos and fine China, but I relish the opportunity to feel fully me again, if only to get a plate to the head.

When Cheryl and I lie in bed, I feel far away. Watching someone else’s hand pump on her newly lifted breasts is a weekly—often daily—torture. My wife not being here, I suppose, is a blessing. Can I truly call her my wife now? She knows everything about him, my little confidant. And she’s been supportive. She once said it’s like having a director live inside you, guiding the scene. It’s done wonders for my career. We both know that. One night when the little one was out, skulking around the kitchen, trying to grab a midnight snack that wasn’t my pineal gland, my dear Cheryl asked, Bobby…when we said I do, did you say it…or was it…

I lied. 

Oh dear, please…no…no…no. It was all me. I remember them like it was yesterday. 

Loyal and faithful, sickness and health—except we Kennedys don’t get sick. We either grow into lions shaped by suffering, or we just die. I guess you could say I’m a lion, just like Uncle Ted, but without the Chappaquiddick bridge. Loyal and faithful: those tenets are challenging, especially this third time around. I wish I could argue that the little guy was to blame for all the infidelity, but unsurprisingly he and I have similar tastes. Damaged and starved for attention, but not enough to overshadow my goals. I am a Kennedy, after all. 

A part of me wants this to end. It still feels like a lie. Grugov has this new Frauscher 747 Mirage he keeps docked, and I know how to hotwire an engine. Maybe I could go out to the Atlantic, see how far I could get to Cuba before running out of fuel. I’ll never do it, not when there’s so much work to be done. I have to make them proud. Aunt Jackie, Uncle Ted, Uncle Jack, David, Dad. 

Now, if anyone ever reads this, they might ask why I don’t rebel, squash the fucker like the parasitic bug he is? Truthfully, I can’t help but let him take control. What he does works, for the most part, and we have to stick to the program if we want to make our next move. We’ll never win, of course. The rest of my family says it will tarnish our name, but what do they know? You might ask, Bobby…can’t you make a bid on your own? Well, let me leave you with this. Public servants are supposed to be instruments of the people, keyword: instrument. Maybe this was my purpose all along, to be used for a grander design, where I am a vehicle…a vessel, and by some logic I am representing the will of the people, because people listen to the Worm. The Worm knows what’s best. The Worm knows all.