The Days of the Bitter End by Jack Engelhard

Author:Jack Engelhard [Engelhard, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jack Engelhard, Indecent Proposal, Compulsive, Escape from Mount Moriah, The Days of the Bitter End, Slot Attendant, The Girls of Cincinnati, The Bathsheba Deadline, The Horsemen, The Prince of Dice, Demi Moore, Robert Redford, JFK, JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, The Village, New York, 1963, Vaughn Meader, Lenny Bruce
Publisher: CCB Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Cliff was zipping along and only those who knew him recognized the absence of enthusiasm in his sketches. He was going through the motions, faking it, phoning it in, according to the show biz slang. The people did not know that they were getting but half a John Kennedy and half a Cliff Harris. As long as he kept up the Kennedyesque patter accompanied by the Kennedy mannerisms and the Kennedy vocal inflections - as long as he did all that they were satisfied; thrilled, actually.

The skit where he’s serenading “Jackie” on her birthday with his rendition of the ditty “Roses are Red” drew wails of laughter. Adopting the Kennedyesque plainsong monotone, Cliff proceeded with, “Roses-are-ah red-ah, violets are-ah blue, sugah is-ah sweet my-ya love, and-ah, show are you. Now let us go fo-wawd and-ah blow out the-ah candles.” That was the show stopper; but then, everything was. “No Bobby (the president’s brother and attorney general who was even younger and younger-looking than Jack and thus the object of raillery about still being so wet behind the ears), you can’t lick-ah icing off the-ah cake.”

The mask, however, would soon be coming off, if all went according to plan, as Cliff was preparing to surprise them by switching to that sick routine, the sick shtick, that had Kennedy trading missiles with Khrushchev, Kennedy almost gladly offering up American cities for annihilation.

Wipe out Philadelphia? Why not? They’re all Negros! San Francisco? Take it Nikita. They’re all queers. Lenny Bruce material - only many perilous steps ahead. In other words he was going to zing them with a grotesque Kennedy and thus, in his view, awaken them from their slumber.

Forget the beatific stuff; here comes the ugly truth. Not necessarily the truth about Kennedy, but the truth about themselves, ourselves, that other America, the Nixon America that was slouching in the wings.

Cliff’s intention - and his intentions were well-meant - was to hold up a mirror that reflected an America with all its blemishes. The roundtable at McSorely’s had actually dissuaded him from going ahead with the plan, he was fully prepared to drop it, but then he saw them out there and was provoked.

This was the time to reveal himself as Cliff Harris, a Cliff Harris with a message, a Cliff Harris with a prophecy. The prophecy being that given the right moment, the right leader, or rather the wrong moment, the wrong leader, we are all vulnerable to thuggery and bestiality. The line between civility and barbarism was as fragile as the frail gap between Beethoven and Hitler.

(Lest we forget Salem and McCarthyism and what we did to the Indians.)

Cliff did not have to go far to discover the ugliness that was percolating in all of us. He only had to look inside himself. He did not like what he saw. Since it was true, according to the wisdom of the fathers, that each individual is an entire universe, therefore he, Cliff Harris, was no better and no worse than

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